
THE LIBRARY 

OF 

THE UNIVERSITY 
OF CALIFORNIA 

LOS ANGELES 



c- 



A KNIGHT IN DENIM 



A KNIGHT 
IN DENIM 



BY 

RAMSEY BENSON 



CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 
NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::::: 1912 



COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY 
CHARLES SCRIBNER S SONS 



Published March, 1912 




PS 

3503 



A KNIGHT IN DENIM 



1523773 



A Knight in Denim 

A PRO CITY is in Nebraska, though you may 
not readily find it on an ordinary map. 
Many years ago a party of pioneers, journeying 
through those parts, were set upon and slaughtered 
by redskins that is to say, an atrocity took place; 
and the place, in the mysterious dispensation of 
frontier usage, took thereupon the name of Atrocity. 
After awhile the railway came through and built a 
station and it was called Atrocity. But when a 
town sprang up and flourished and began to put on 
airs how about Atrocity then ? Of course the 
implications were degrading, and it was accounted 
a very happy thought when somebody pointed out 
that by making two words of the name and ex 
alting a small letter into a capital, not only would 
all offence be done away with, but a designation 
would be achieved having nowhere its like. 

The Valley is a land of fatness, and fat lands are 
apt to breed queer people. The men of the Valley 
are not as other men are, nor the women, nor 
the children. You meet with specimens of them 

3 



A Knight in Denim 

almost any day in Atro City. You are struck. 
You wish to know more about them. 

"Who are those singular persons?" you ask of 
a convenient villager. 

"Them? Them s Lilies of the Valley," the 
villager makes answer, with amiable levity ami 
able always, because the Valley, commercially, is 
Atro City s milch cow. 

Bill Harbaugh came an utter stranger drifted 
down into the Valley like the veriest tramp. He 
had been of that vast body of soldiery which 
wonderfully melted back into civil life at the end 
of the great war so much he could tell about 
himself, and so much nobody doubted. Since 
his mustering out he had seen, by his own vague 
account, as many places as the fabulous Ulysses 
he had every mark of the rolling stone, in short. 
But here his rolling ceased. It was as if the 
Valley were the very place he had been searching 
for. He adopted it forthwith, and became the 
oddest of its oddities. 

Bill, by the way, was from Ohio originally. 
"Ihier!" he called it. 



CHAPTER I 

" \\ 7Y ye ? Wy ye, anyhow ?" That was the 
T T form in which Bill invariably greeted a 
grown person, man or woman. 

"Middlin , Bill, middlin . How s self?" rejoined 
Arndt. Though born a Dane, Arndt had become 
to all practical intents and purposes a Yankee. 
Nobody was shrewder. 

" Pooty fair, consid rin*. Ain t thinkin of sellin 
yer place, be ye ?" 

"Hadn t thought of it, Bill. Thinkin of buy- 
in , be ye ?" 

"F-m, yeah some! Whatcher take ?" 

"What ll I take?" 

"What ll ye take, anyhow?" 

"How d about twenty-five hunderd strike ye?" 

"Bout twenty-five hunderd ?" 

"Say about twenty-five hunderd. Eighty acres, 
an the buildin s." 

That s some money, I reckon." 

"I ain t anxious to sell, as I knows on." 

"Dunno s I m so dodrotted anxious to buy, 
nuther." 

5 



A Knight in Denim 

"Tell ye what I ll do, though, seein it s you 
I ll knock off an even five hunderd. That s rea- 
s nable." 

"Five hunderd even five hunderd?" 

"Makin* the figger jest twenty hunderd. Come 
now!" 

Throw in hosses an tools, so s t I kin git right 
to work ?" 

" Hosses an tools tail goes with the hide. You 
kin git to work to-day, if ye make up yer mind to 
buy." 

"It s ago!" 

Arndt knew which side of his bread was but 
tered, and from the moment that Bill Harbaugh 
came proposing to purchase his little farm, there 
wasn t a doubt about the outcome. Arndt would 
have sold for a dollar had Bill held out to haggle 
so far. 

It was Bill s way of hiring himself out, and there 
was nothing to the business further. "A man s a 
fool to work for somebody else when he kin jes s 
well work for himself," he was wont to declare, and 
by way of conforming his practice to his precept, 
he would never bestow his services until he had 
gone through the form of bargain and sale. It 
was only a form, except in Bill s own mind, where 
it had peculiar validity. Never a penny of consid 
eration passed between the parties, for money and 

6 



A Knight in Denim 

the value thereof lay altogether beyond the simple 
fellow s ken; but he deemed the property his 
henceforth, and always spoke of it as such. 

The advantage to Arndt lay in the fact that Bill, 
since he was working for himself, worked hard and 
faithfully, and expected no wages. His keep he 
had to have, of course, but that wasn t much. His 
wants were few indeed. The clothes he wore were 
of the cheapest and commonest description, and not 
many there were days in summer, with the harvest 
pressing heavily, when he would go without a 
shirt even, bare to the waist, hairy as a cave man, 
brawny as a bison, void as either of all conscious 
ness of indecency; and if he had to have some 
thing warmer in winter, almost any old coat would 
serve. A very few dollars a year found him in 
clothes. For the rest, he ate a good deal inordi 
nately, in fact; but the plainest fare suited him best, 
and he made but slight expense on that score. The 
one luxury of which he had made a necessity was 
tobacco he had to be chewing pretty much all the 
time; but the cheapest plug captured his fancy as 
entirely as the choicest fine-cut, so that his luxury 
did not serve to swell his keep beyond a trifle. And 
his keep was all he cost. Really it was no wonder 
if Arndt, a shrewd man of affairs in his small way, 
took care to be only so reluctant about selling his 
place as to help rather than hinder the transac- 

7 



A Knight in Denim 

tion. No doubt it affected Bill for the better where 
he was given to feel that he had beaten somebody 
down. 

But in any exhaustive discussion of the subject 
of wages as it concerned Bill Harbaugh, there 
need be distinction made between wages of the 
material sort and wages which went more to the 
emolument of the spirit. To Bill the former signi 
fied very little he took it as a matter of course 
that when he was hungry he should be given to eat, 
and when nakedness proved inconvenient he should 
be clothed; and that was about all. As for money, 
the paper and metal counters whereby we pass 
value from hand to hand, it was a thing apart, a 
mystery he couldn t distinguish between a half- 
dollar piece and a quarter and a matter of no 
moment. But of the other kind of wages he was 
not less than covetous, and unless they were pretty 
lavishly forthcoming his discontent was instantly 
manifest. 

Flattery, in a word, was what Bill had mostly to 
be paid off with. And there was no danger of over 
doing it, so to turn his stomach by surfeit. Nor 
had praise to be in anywise set off with the sauce 
of delicacy in order to induce him to swallow it. 
Like his tobacco and his meat, it need be plentifully 
furnished, but it might be very coarse and common 
withal. 

8 



A Knight in Denim 

Arndt understood about that, too, and was not 
lacking to the occasion. He had at the moment a 
field of barley white for the sickle, and during some 
days now he had been weighed down to the point of 
despair over it. The ground was too full of stumps 
to admit of a reaper and so grown up with wild vine 
that the tangled mass fairly defied a cradle to force 
a way through it. You will bear in mind that an 
enterprise had to be only moderately difficult in 
order to get itself given up as impracticable down 
there in the Valley, and Arndt s barley easily passed 
the limit. It stood, in other words, to be left where 
it was only for the new dispensation that is to say, 
Bill. 

And once he had effected a purchase of the place 
to his satisfaction, Bill naturally looked about him 
with more particularity, and his eye fell upon the 
grain which already bowed down with its ripeness. 

"Y gorry, have to git right into that there bar 
ley!" quoth he, and bustled like the busy bee. 

"I was thinkin of lettin it go, it s so tangled up," 
rejoined Arndt artfully. " I don t believe no man 
kin swing a cradle through it, not without he s an 
almighty strong man." 

That was only the first adroit instalment of Bill s 
wages Arndt would never be stingy with what 
cost him nothing and profited him so richly. He 
brought out the cradle, all rusty with desuetude, 

9 



A Knight in Denim 

and blithely turned the grindstone while the new 
proprietor sharpened the blade; and wheresoever 
there offered the opportunity to pay a compliment, 
paid it. 

"Takes a mighty good eye to grind a scythe 
right/* he remarked. 

Bill swelled under the implication that his was 
that kind of an eye, and handed the steel over for 
inspection. Arndt ran his finger along it critically, 
and was forthwith unable to restrain his enthusi 
astic admiration. 

"You ve hit it!" he loudly protested. "Skin me 
if that edge ain t jest on the turn the hull length. 
It s some fun bein a farmer where a man knows 
how to keep his tools up in shape like that." 

The dexterity with which Bill rigged the fingers 
of the cradle brought down upon him a shower of 
laudatory comment, but it was as the merest 
sprinkling in comparison with the flood which 
his manner of striking into the barley presently 
evoked. And of a truth he did the thing remark 
ably well, and he looked a splendid fellow doing 
it, with his massive, shapely shoulders swinging 
rythmically, graceful in the surpassing strength 
which made little of the tough task. Perhaps his 
motions were a trifle over-elaborate you would 
suspect that it was hardly necessary so to toss the 
cradle aloft in preparation for the sweep; but when 

10 



A Knight in Denim 

was merit, humanly speaking, ever wholly free from 
affectation ? If Bill was showing off a bit, that 
made him out no less than a man, and surely it 
counted in no derogation of the lordliness of his 
march to and fro across the field. He was a 
species of conqueror, and a very good species, too, 
since he left behind him no destruction, but a swath 
of golden grain laid as straight as you could draw a 
string and a stubble cut square as square could be. 

"Always tell a bang-up good cradler by his stub 
ble!" gushed Arndt. "Most of em leaves a ridge 
twixt the swaths, but I don t see no ridges along 
here." 

That wasn t strictly flattery, since it was fact, but 
it passed for wages none the less. Bill glowed as 
much with exaltation and uplift of the spirit as 
with the effort of his sinewy body. For the mo 
ment his countenance wore a bright, alert look, till 
you could almost forget the telltale angles which 
all too plainly revealed his mental deficiency. 

"Want me to bind up for ye, Bill ?" asked Arndt 
after a little. 

"No," replied Bill gravely. "I can t be hirin 
help. Hired help s what eats up the profits." 

And he bound up the barley himself, while Arndt 
had nothing to do but stand by and spout praises. 

Such were the unusual terms of Bill Harbaugh s 
service. On the face of it he was a hewer of wood 

ii 



A Knight in Denim 

and a drawer of water of the most hopeless char 
acter, but he made his lot luminous in his own view 
by means of the harmless fiction unless it should 
work harm to himself which he never suffered to 
lapse. But if he regarded himself as the owner of 
the property, he chose not to be exacting in no 
narrow sense did he stand on his rights. Every 
thing went on about as before, except that there was 
another hand in the work, and a hand abundantly 
strong and willing and loyal. Arndt made himself 
as much at home as ever, and he sold off produce 
quite as before, pocketing the proceeds without 
a word of objection from Bill. So long as the toil 
ing and moiling were left to him, to be managed in 
his own way, Bill cared not a fig about the rest. 

He was a sunny fellow, of a cheerfulness which 
no stress could exhaust. Nobody ever heard a 
crabbed word out of his mouth; never was he seen 
sullen and out of sorts. Even the weather, let it 
be howsoever sultry and sticky on the one hand, or 
rough and blustery on the other, could not ruffle 
Bill, for all that these details of material environ 
ment mean so much in the economy of him who has 
no intellectual resources to fall back on, and whose 
sense of well-being is almost wholly a matter of 
physical conditions. No doubt there were times 
when Bill felt the discomfort, but he sang his song 
notwithstanding. His song, by the way, was fa- 

12 



A Knight in Denim 

mous a tuneless thing with all the words lost to 
him but a single line. His voice hadn t a trace of 
musical quality, and his singing was no more than 
a thickly aspirated, monotonous groan, until he 
deemed it time for the refrain to be coming in, 
whereupon he would burst forth tremendously and 
bellow: 

"And roam no more in proud despair!" 

Apparently he had no inkling of what the words 
signified, and if there lay any connection between 
them and his former life, he remained unaware of it. 
His health was magnificent. Others all about 
him were forever falling ill, but there was none of 
that for him. Of infection he was absolutely un 
afraid, and to his lack of fear his immunity may 
have been in a measure due certainly he was im 
mune. And perhaps the strangest thing about him 
was his aptitude for nursing the sick. He liked 
nothing better than to be sent for to come and sit up 
with somebody who needed to be administered to 
during the night. He never fell asleep when such 
a charge lay upon him, and though he couldn t tell 
time by the clock, never a doctor who had experi 
ence of his fidelity but would trust him to give 
medicines at proper intervals. Among these scien 
tific men, indeed, there had been broached and 
discussed the possibility of Bill being gifted with 



A Knight in Denim 

a sixth sense, a power of perception beyond that of 
ordinary mortals. 

Truly he was wise in unexpected ways. In sud 
den emergencies especially he would display a re 
sourcefulness that was very astonishing. A certain 
butcherman in Atro City could testify to that, since 
he owed his life to it. He had come down into the 
Valley after hogs one day, and for the reason that 
these beasts were likely to be wild he brought his 
gun along to shoot them. But instead of shooting 
hogs he managed by some mishap to shoot himself 
straight through the leg, just above the knee, and 
the torrent of red blood that came spurting out 
was very terrifying indeed. The butcherman must 
have bled to death in a few minutes if it hadn t been 
for Bill, who alone of the considerable company 
present knew what to do. 

A new doctor, as it happened, was called to 
dress the wound, and he regarded the rude but 
effective tourniquet with curiosity. "Who taught 
you to do that ?" he asked. 

The inquiry plainly implied commendation, and 
Bill did not fail to respond as usual, swelling greatly; 
and when he was in that mood there wasn t much 
but foolishness to be got out of him. He gibbered 
some silly, inconsequential reply, with a look in 
tended to be crafty, as if he didn t care to reveal all 
he knew. 



A Knight in Denim 

The doctor persisted, however. "Who told you 
the thing had to be put on above the wound ?" 

Somebody whispered that Bill wasn t supposed 
to be altogether there with respect of his wits, 
whereupon the doctor s interest was freshly moved. 
" Does it argue an intuitive knowledge of the cir 
culation of the blood ?" he mused aloud. 

"That s it!" Bill broke out with a vacuous 
laugh. "Cultivation of the blood I cal late that s 
what s ailin of him." 

At times it would almost seem as if Bill s fool 
ishness were in some degree put on, so exceed 
ingly foolish was it. 

His strength was that of a giant. For instance, 
he could take a moderately heavy man by the strap 
of his trousers and hold him out at arm s-length. 
Nor was he any of your stolid, clumsy titans on 
the contrary, his agility was something to startle 
you. When first he let it be known, by actual 
demonstration, that he could turn a somersault, 
slap and clean without touching his hands to the 
ground, the belief sprang up that he had been a 
performer in a circus. Plenty of young fellows 
threw hand-spring and cart-wheels, but not an 
other could achieve the somersault. 

With all his exceeding prowess, he could be 
drawn into no contest, not even by dint of flattery 
he was a man of peace first, last, and all the time. 

5 



A Knight in Denim 

There were wrestlers about, and the evidences of 
his strength and dexterity were a species of chal 
lenge in their eyes, so that they were wishful to 
have it out with him; but Bill always dodged. It 
came to be thought of him that he was a coward. 
That he couldn t be kicked into a fight grew to be 
a common opinion. 

It was an opinion not destined to endure, how 
ever the day arrived when it had to modify itself 
materially. No rural free delivery had come to 
bless the farmers as yet, and one winter when work 
was slack Bill took it upon himself to tramp off to 
Atro City every day and fetch the letters for all the 
neighbors. The task was not slight, but he derived 
great satisfaction from it a letter was a sacred 
thing to him, and to be allowed to constitute him 
self a link in the chain whereby it was transmitted 
made him very proud and happy. And he felt the 
responsibility, as the prankish boys learned who 
conceived a plot to waylay him, just for a joke, as 
he came along with his precious charge. The joke 
failed to develop. What developed was rather that 
Bill could not only be kicked into a fight, but that 
once in he could fight like a lion. Only that the 
boys made haste to disclose their identity and the 
innocence of their purpose, the results might have 
been serious for them. 

Kindness to dumb animals was another of his 
16 



A Knight in Denim 

traits his patience with them was a proverb. 
Some slightingly attributed the quality to the 
feebleness of his intellect simpletons were always 
patient, and where one had trials to undergo there 
was nothing so helpful as being an idiot. Others, 
more considerately, put forward the theory of a 
kind of instinctive free-masonry between the 
beasts and the simple man, and in truth there was 
much to bear out the view. Especially noteworthy 
in that connection was Bill s success with balky 
horses, probably the most finished specimen of 
obstinacy afforded by animals not endowed with 
reason. No horse ever balked with him, and no 
horse which had balked with another refused to 
start when he gave the word. Significantly, the 
word was never harshly given, and with never a 
blow even of the softest. 

He had withal a notion of manners and amenities 
and a taste for society. Often, as the spirit took 
him, he would spend a Sunday making" short calls 
up and down the Valley, and on these occasions 
he conducted himself with considerable formality. 
In spite of the hunger for compliments which pos 
sessed him, you wouldn t catch him fishing for them 
when he was making calls. He made a particular 
point of steering the conversation to subjects most 
likely to interest the other parties to it their ex 
ploits rather than his own came in for attention if 

1 7 



A Knight in Denim 

he had his way; and what made him quite singu 
lar among the men of those regions, he could meet 
women-folks without blenching. Others might 
hang their heads bashfully and stammer and shift 
in fact, they usually did but not Bill. Yet 
his ease was not the ease of indifference nobody 
could be more deferential and truly courteous to 
the sex. Women-folks were cast in a coarse mould 
thereabouts, and they made plenty of fun of Bill, 
even of his deference to themselves; yet they un 
deniably liked to have him call, if only because the 
young children were so pleased to see him. These 
latter hailed with boisterous acclamations the com 
ing of the only grown man they knew who would 
cheerfully and without mockery unbend and play 
with them at their own games. 

But why had he chosen to go to Arndt s to work ? 
Be it known that there wasn t a farmer from one 
end of the Valley to the other who wouldn t jump 
at the chance to sell out to him at his own figure; 
and if it had been known that he was in the market, 
he would have been offered no end of tempting 
bargains. That was another peculiarity of his, the 
manner in which he left one place to take up with 
another, the sum of it being that he kept his own 
counsel absolutely. Just now he had tarried for 
upward of a year with Jenkins, the Welshman, 
seemingly satisfied and full of the belief that every- 

18 



A Knight in Denim 

thing in sight was his, to have and to hold. But all 
at once he was gone, without a word of warning; 
his sense of proprietorship had broken down be 
fore some stronger feeling, and he had abandoned 
his property incontinently. 

How came it about ? 

You should be made aware that there existed at 
Arndt s certain uncommon conditions of a domes 
tic nature. Arndt was a man devoid of romance, 
and when, some years previous, he had deemed it 
meet to marry, he went about the business in an 
unromantic way. A family in Atro City had a 
sister back in Denmark, and the sister was so fallen 
into misfortune that she stood ready to take any 
body for a husband, and she it was who, after sun 
dry negotiations of a purely financial character, be 
came Mrs. Arndt. It was an inauspicious match, 
and as the auspices were so the event proved 
the wife was as wretched as a dull, spiritless 
woman could be. She bore no children, and by 
that deeply disappointed her husband, who wanted 
boys io do the drudgery of the farm and girls who 
might be sent out to service and thus afford a 
revenue. Perhaps, on the whole, and in view of the 
ideals which prevailed in their home, it was just as 
well that their marriage had no issue; but babies 
would have been a consolation to the woman, and 
they would have made the man kinder. 



A Knight in Denim 

When Bill came into the house for dinner, after 
a strenuous forenoon in the barley field, he asked 
Mrs. Arndt what her first name was. "I always 
like to call folks by their first name, specially 
women-folks," he explained. 

It was long since any one had taken so much in 
terest in her, and the poor drudge, neglected by her 
husband and shunned by her neighbors, responded 
as a dog hungry for affection might respond to a 
caress. Her name was Olga, and when Bill spoke 
it over after her, as to try its quality, her face 
lighted up with an unwonted smile. Possibly in 
the manner of the dumb beasts she caught the note 
of kindness and fellowship in his voice. Anyway, 
that was a day of happy augury for Olga, and she 
and Bill became such friends that Arndt s jealousy 
might have been moved only that he was too base 
to be jealous. Henceforth the woman s heavy toil 
was vastly lightened by the strong man s helpful 
hand. Bill s duties out-of-doors were never so 
pressing that he couldn t stop and give Olga 
a lift. 

Arndt had a fancy for coming home drunk at 
no very infrequent intervals; and as often as he 
came home drunk it was his further fancy to beat 
his wife cruelly, so that she screamed in agony. 
But there was no more of it after the advent of 
the new proprietor. Arndt was going on with the 

20 



A Knight in Denim 

usual order one evening, and had his fist up to 
strike, when Bill interposed. 

"Now don t do that!" he coaxed, in soft accents, 
but holding Arndt s arm the while in a grip that 
there was no escaping from. " It don t do no good. 
It don t do no more good to strike a woman than it 
does to club a hoss, not a mite." 

It was a curious situation intolerable, no doubt, 
only that Arndt so well knew, when he was sober 
at least, which side of his bread was buttered. 



21 



CHAPTER II 

WHEN a republic more grateful than the prov 
erb has called its kind enacted the Invalid 
Pension Law, by the provisions of which every 
veteran of the war who could show a disability 
due to his service was entitled to pay from the day 
of his discharge, not unnaturally there ensued an 
overhauling of disabilities throughout the land. 

Now Bill Harbaugh, as it happened, had not 
about him a scrap of documentary proof that he 
had been in the army. Furthermore, he couldn t 
recall the number of his regiment or the letter of his 
company, or the name of a single officer of either; 
nor could he describe any engagement in which he 
had participated in such wise as to identify it. As 
for the leaders whom fame had made immortal, 
he thought he had heard of Grant, though he 
wasn t sure, and if hard pressed he recalled a Pap 
Thompson who might have been Pap Thomas; 
but Lincoln was no more to him than Leonidas, and 
Sherman likewise, and all the rest none was so 
illustrious as to have found even a precarious lodge 
ment in his memory. Bill s memory, to tell the 
truth, was far and away the weakest of his weak 

22 



A Knight in Denim 

faculties pretty much a blank under any test. 
He could tell two war stories, and only two; ram- 
blingly enough, yet with sufficient uniformity to 
vouch for their substantial verity. One was about 
his detachment having been loaded into cattle- 
cars for transportation he couldn t say where, or 
whither they were going whereby they were af 
fronted and cut up, and by way of manifesting 
their disapproval pulled out the coupling-pins so 
that the train couldn t start. 

"Cap n he was bilin mad, but jes s soon s he d 
open his head we d all blat like cattle!" related 
Bill, and that was the point and culmination of the 
tale. Asked how the difficulty was adjusted, or 
whether the train ever succeeded in starting, he 
couldn t say, but the recollection of what they did 
just as soon as the captain opened his head, that 
remained vividly with him, and he found it so 
amusing that he would almost strangle with laugh 
ter marking in what a humorous light he beheld 
the incident, you could understand why he remem 
bered it. 

The other story discovered him in a more mar 
tial attitude, taking his place in the skirmish line 
and firing what he described as the signal gun. 
The palpable distinction had touched his vanity, 
and once more you could understand why he had 
remembered. How the skirmish had resulted, 

23 



A Knight in Denim 

whether in defeat or victory, was a detail wholly 
forgotten. 

In fine, Bill s war record, as he knew it himself, 
was a hazy affair indeed. 

To be sure, a veteran hadn t to be so very much 
of an invalid in order to secure a pension. Take 
Dan Linton, for instance a Lily of Lilies, by the 
way. Though Dan served three years in the cav 
alry arm and saw plenty of real fighting, he came 
off without a scratch except for having the tip of his 
ear clipped away by the sabre of a clumsy comrade 
as the troop were drilling. The injury was of the 
most trivial character, a laughing matter and no 
more till the pension law went into effect, where 
upon Dan had the front to go before the examiner 
with an unheard-of tale of deafness; and whether 
because he was so plausible or the authorities were 
so complacent, he presently found himself in the 
enjoyment of an assured income of four dollars a 
month, with so pretty a lump of back pay that he 
was forthwith rated a rich man in the Valley. 

If Dan Linton might have a pension, why not 
almost any one ? And particularly, why not Bill 
Harbaugh ? 

Not that the question was raised by Bill himself, 
If the initiative had been left to him, there would 
probably never have been a move in the business 
certainly not so long as a pension meant nothing to 

24 



A Knight in Denim 

him but mere money, for which he had no use what 
soever. But if he hadn t an atom of avarice in him, 
Arndt could easily make up the deficiency out of 
his plentiful supply. Arndt scented cash, and the 
smell of it was sweet in his nostrils. If Bill didn t 
care for the stuff, that circumstance made pretty 
certain of his willingness to let it pass from him, 
and Arndt clearly foresaw himself spending the 
back pay and the monthly allowance as it came to 
hand. Very shrewdly he laid his plans, and so 
cleverly did he play his cards that Bill was shortly 
made conscious of a wound to his pride he was 
given to perceive that whoever got a pension was 
thereby distinguished, that there was not only 
money in it, but a vindication of his personal worth. 
Should he stand by and let the world say that Dan 
Linton was a better man than he ? Never Bill 
could endure nothing so derogatory as that. 

Arndt was well aware that at least some pretence 
of a disability would have to be put forward the 
machinery was pretty loose and accommodating, 
no doubt, but it was apt to balk at the physical per 
fection of a Hercules; and the physical perfection 
of a Hercules was about what Bill presented for 
inspection. Arndt was aware of this, and rose to 
the occasion in his best style of craft. He coached 
the candidate in the simulation of a delicacy of the 
lungs, contracted by sleeping on the bare ground 

2 5 



A Knight in Denim 

in cold weather; he even taught Bill to cough a 
little; and he went along to see the thing through. 

The examiner was an old soldier himself, with 
a strong prejudice of sympathy in favor of almost 
any applicant. An eye less skilled than his could 
see at a glance how it lay with Bill, and his heart 
went out especially to the simple fellow. 

"Well, comrade," said he, with a friendly nudge, 
"what appears to be the trouble with you ?" 

"One lung gone and the other partly!" vocifer 
ated Bill, in tremendous tones, as if by the very 
weight of sound to carry conviction. 

Arndt was dumfounded and stared with dropped 
jaw of course he was too shrewd ever to have 
prompted Bill to claim so absurdly much. How 
had that singular individual come by the concep 
tion of symptoms so advanced and alarming ? 

The doctor laughed outright. " That s rather 
serious!" he chuckled, prodding the giant s mag 
nificent chest. 

"One lung gone and the other partly!" Bill re 
peated, with an air of satisfaction, as having car 
ried his point. 

The more the doctor prodded and pried into the 
conditions the more he chuckled it was a very 
funny experience from his point of view and the 
more the candidate swelled, paying no attention to 
the chagrin of his sponsor, who beheld fond castles 

26 



A Knight in Denim 

tumbling. But when the examination had gone 
so far as to develop the utter absence of aught that 
could remotely pass for a disability, the kindly ex 
aminer became grave all at once. As much as ever 
he wished the titanic simpleton to have a pension. 

"Hum! you find yourself unable, at times, to do 
a full day s work, don t you?" quoth he sugges 
tively. 

"F m what s that?" Bill demanded sharply. 

" You you tire easily when you undertake heavy 
work, you know!" 

The doctor, out of his abundant and not too 
scrupulous sympathy, was going far to help trump 
up a pretence which might pass muster, but Bill 
declined the opening altogether and with disdain. 
The intimation that he tired with heavy work 
stabbed him to the marrow of his tenderest sensi 
bilities, and he burst forth with such a torrent of 
brag and bluster about what he could do in a day, 
how vastly more than any other man, that there 
was nothing more to be done the cause was abso 
lutely closed. The examiner exploded in gales of 
merriment, Arndt swallowed his chagrin as best 
he might, and so the enterprise came to an end. 

Not without effect on the course of history, how 
ever. 

In the moment of his overthrow, while smarting 
yet under the sting of a bitter defeat, Arndt scrupled 

27 



A Knight in Denim 

not to heap reproaches, and particularly he had 
much to say concerning ignorance, the sin and the 
shame of it. Speaking generally, Bill wasn t the 
sort of egotist to be much troubled by censure 
ordinarily it would only set him to vaunting him 
self, though sometimes he would shut his ears and 
be as if he heard nothing. But now, for some 
reason or no reason, it was different Arndt s re 
proaches seemed actually to sink in, to accuse him 
before his own conscience, so that he fell grave 
and thoughtful. In a dim but not to be doubted 
revelation it came over him that his behavior had 
put him in an unfavorable light the avowals 
whereby he had thought to exalt himself had 
ended with degrading him. Where was he left 
with reference to Dan Linton ? How was he to 
look the world in the face after being so set down ? 

In short, Bill was given to suspect that he had 
fallen into a serious error, and the fact that he could 
not, by groping in the twilight of his poor mind, ar 
rive at any definite conception of how he had done 
so rendered him only the uneasier. For a season 
he was very uneasy indeed, and unlike himself. 

But the fog of his indecision lifted at length 
Bill formed a resolution and in it found consolation. 
Never too late to mend the principle of the adage 
had its part in his motives even though he should 
not know the letter of it; Bill was no longer a 

28 



A Knight in Denim 

boy or even a young man, but he was going to 
school. 

"I ll show em I ain t so dodgasted ig n ant!" he 
declared, and being restored in spirit, bragged of 
the great things he was about to achieve. 

The Valley was prolific in children and sup 
ported several schools, such as they were. That 
is to say, there had been built several rude and 
comfortless buildings where boys and girls assem 
bled daily during the winter months and submitted 
themselves, more or less willingly, to discipline os 
tensibly scholastic. The system bore no bounti 
ful fruitage at its best. If by any chance a fairly 
competent teacher was to be had for the meagre 
pay offered, the pupils would make some progress 
in their studies; but that was an exceptional con 
tingency, and far more usual was it for the young 
idea to leave off in the spring about where it had 
begun in the fall, very near the foot of the ladder of 
learning. Such of the people of the Valley as were 
not past middle-age had mostly gone to those very 
schools, and they were hardly better than illiterate 
if you sought a testimony to the merit, or rather 
demerit of the system, you had only to look about 
you. 

It created the biggest kind of a sensation when 
Bill, dressed up in spick-and-span blue overalls 
and a new jumper with a garish check in it, put in 

29 



A Knight in Denim 

an appearance at Miss Spicer s school to be en 
rolled as a scholar. 

"W y ye? W y ye, anyhow?" he thundered, 
halting in the doorway, though not by reason of any 
embarrassment. "Guess I m prob ly late some. 
Sparked cow s calf ain t learnin to drink right 
peart, an* it takes time to fuss with the critter. 
Most prob ly you never learnt a calf to drink, least 
ways ary calf with some Jersey mixed into it. 
Them Jerseys is stubborn, now I say." 

But if Bill found himself at ease in the situation 
which he had created, Miss Spicer was not so fort 
unate. She was taken entirely by surprise, and 
knew not what to think, or what to say, and so 
did nothing but gasp and grow very red in the face 
while Bill went on to announce his purpose. The 
teacher, as commonly happened, was young and 
inexperienced, either technically or generally a 
green girl and an apprentice, in short, and pretty 
much helpless before the unexpected emergency. 
The inextinguishable merriment of the restless chil 
dren in nowise tended to help matters; they were 
accustomed to laugh at Bill Harbaugh, and never, 
perhaps, had he given them better reason. 

It was an odd situation indeed, and hard for 
Miss Spicer, particularly when Bill loudly enlarged 
upon the circumstance of his having chosen to en 
roll himself in her school in preference to any of 

3 



A Knight in Denim 

the others because he liked her style. "You re all 
right!" quoth he, with an air of patronage, and 
asked her what her first name was. That was 
when Miss Spicer found her dignity, and along 
with it a bit of tact and firmness, to the end that 
she was able to usher her new pupil to a seat and 
get him busied with a book. He was to the last 
degree tractable and eager once he perceived the 
pathway of learning open before him, and so the 
difficulty passed in its first phase. 

However, there were other phases awaiting de 
velopment, and they developed all too soon. Bill 
had scarcely a waking moment, unless when he 
was at his meals, that his mouth didn t hold its 
quid of tobacco, which meant that he need expec 
torate at frequent intervals. The necessity took 
him just as Miss Spicer, having commended to 
his careful scrutiny sundry letters of the alphabet, 
turned her attention elsewhere; and straightway 
without ceremony he left his seat and went over 
to the little stove and into the midst of it projected 
such a quantity of tobacco juice that the fire was 
staggered and seemed almost ready to expire. Of 
course that gave rise to more laughter and con 
fusion, and distraction for the teacher. 

What was she to do ? Bill became no end of a 
trial, in spite of his perfect docility. He would 
study, as she bade him, but likewise he would re- 

3 1 



A Knight in Denim 

lax and make himself informally sociable with the 
boys and girls, passing from one to another to ac 
cost them familiarly and strike up an exchange of 
small talk. He couldn t be made to see that he 
was doing wrong in being sociable that way, and 
the little teacher s troubles multiplied accordingly. 

After some days of demoralization the strain be 
came so great that she complained to the directors 
of the district, and asked them wouldn t they please 
have Bill kept from coming to school. It was do 
ing him no good to come, she represented he had 
shown himself incapable of remembering a single 
letter from one day to the next, so why shouldn t he 
be kept away ? Miss Spicer couldn t undertake to 
answer for the outcome unless steps of some sort 
were taken right soon, and the directors promised 
to do what they could. It proved not to be much. 
Bill had undoubtedly the right to go to school if he 
wished; they were helpless to prevent him except 
by moral suasion, and moral suasion, as they were 
able to bring it to bear, availed nothing. They 
made rather pointed allusions to his deficiencies, 
but these affected him neither one way nor the 
other; he remained, in short, absolutely unmoved. 

"This here s a free kentry, I reckon!" he re 
marked, and having planted himself upon the rock 
of that incontrovertible truth, he refused to give 
way. 

32 



A Knight in Denim 

Miss Spicer grew pretty desperate, and medi 
tated giving up her school altogether, when all at 
once the conditions changed for the better they 
were mending themselves. Somehow Bill had 
taken a notion to behave himself more suitably. 
He was much quieter quite subdued, in fact; and 
instead of visiting lawlessly about the room, he 
would sit perfectly still hour after hour and stare 
at the teacher. 

In such wise was the order of the school restored, 
but at the same time there was imported another 
cross for the young woman to bear. It wasn t long 
until Bill s steady, unremitting gaze got on her 
nerves. The children detected nothing of the new 
comedy which was unfolding, and that was a bless 
ing, to be sure; but withal there was trial enough 
for Miss Spicer. Furthermore, it was a trial which 
she had to face alone of course she couldn t go to 
the board of directors and complain that Bill was 
falling in love with her. 

She made no pretence at giving him lessons any 
more. An instinct caused her to shrink from him; 
and if he had been less than repulsive to her, she 
would still have had to consider her duty not to 
encourage his foolish passion. And he on his part 
seemed entirely content if only he might have his 
eyes on her even though she never spoke to him, 
or so much as glanced in his direction, it was 

33 



A Knight in Denim 

enough merely to have her within the field of his 
vision. 

That is to say, at first. Lovesickness is com 
monly classed among the progressive maladies, and 
Bill presently discovered new symptoms. And not 
ably there came over him a strange shyness 
that had never in the world been like him. The 
moods of men enamoured were as yet largely unex 
plored by the hapless little teacher, and when she 
found Bill shrinking from her, she misconstrued his 
timidity and was made glad with the thought that 
her deliverance was at hand. But she could not 
forever beguile herself- her rudimentary intuitions 
would inform her at length. Once, quite incident 
ally and without thinking of him particularly, she 
chanced to pass so near Bill that her garments 
brushed against him, and in such a manner did he 
tremble and cower before her that the wretched 
truth was no longer to be blinked. 

After that, for a while, she pitied him he suffered 
visibly, and the sufferings of a simpleton were as 
pathetic as those of a dumb beast; and she re 
solved not to be harsh with him no matter what of 
inconvenience it might cost her. Just a little she 
speculated whether her cross would not be lighter 
if she were to regard it less selfishly, and being by 
these reflections softened she laid it upon herself 
not to be impatient when, that very evening, im- 

34 



A Knight in Denim 

mediately after school was dismissed, Bill sidled 
up to her desk. Plainly it was exacting of him 
an effort almost greater than he could muster, 
but there he was, nevertheless. Devoutly enough 
she wished him elsewhere, but she wouldn t be 
harsh. 

"Well, William ?" quoth she, with a fair simu 
lation of cordiality. 

Bill was shaking as with a palsy. Twice he 
tried to speak and twice his voice died on his 
lips. But the third attempt was more successful. 
"You re all right!" he blurted out, and blushed 
furiously, and then, in utter affright, took to his 
heels and fled. 

She was made very definitely to feel that the 
affair had grown too serious and urgent to be 
trifled with, but somehow, though she thought of 
scarcely anything else in the meanwhile, she hadn t 
made up her mind what she ought to do when the 
next evening duly arrived and Bill s romance cul 
minated. 

He went out with the other pupils, and by the 
time Miss Spicer, having lingered to lock up, set 
forth alone, he was nowhere in sight. She was 
glad of that, not having been wholly free from ap 
prehensions; but her joy was of brief duration, for 
she had walked on only a little way beyond the 
first bend in the road when she beheld him just 

35 



A Knight in Denim 

ahead, and evidently waiting. Miss Spicer s heart 
sank, nor did it rise again very soon. 

Bill didn t speak not a word escaped him from 
first to last. He declared his love, but in another 
style the style, as you might fancy, of the aborig 
inal savage. Nor was his wooing, tested by the 
general principles of psychology, especially at fault. 
Certainly nothing is better established than that 
it is fundamentally the strength of a man which 
causes a woman to esteem him, and to show how 
strong he was, Bill exhibited himself to Miss Spicer 
in a series of curious antics. 

When first she saw him he had taken his stand 
beside a considerable oak sapling, and this, once 
he knew he had her eyes, he laid hold of and up 
rooted with his bare hands. It was a prodigious 
feat, and his aspect was truly gigantic as he tore 
the sapling from the ground, held it for an instant 
aloft, and then dashed it contemptuously on the 
ground. Nor was the one feat all with the help 
of a rail fence, built in the ancient fashion, stout 
and heavy, he gave another demonstration; that 
is, he went at the fence like a frisky bull, and at 
the first onset a whole panel of it went down, with 
a loud crash. He broke down two panels, one 
after the other, and that done, he frisked along till 
a huge bowlder by the road-side afforded him fur 
ther opportunity. The demonstration there was 

36 



A Knight in Denim 

less spectacular but more difficult he shouldered 
the great rock and carried it a distance. And so 
he went on for more than a mile. 

And what of Miss Spicer, meanwhile ? Terror 
had thrown her into a kind of walking trance; she 
knew no impulse save habit, and so did not turn 
back, but continued in that accustomed road till 
she reached the place where she made her home. 
There she forthwith collapsed, and remained in a 
state of prostration for days afterward; and she 
never went back to her school. 

Something like a week later a burly big fellow 
who introduced himself as Miss Spicer s brother 
bustled fiercely down into the Valley avowing his 
intention to horsewhip the miscreant who had in 
sulted his sister. But he did no such thing. He 
proceeded only so far as to see Bill where, his soul 
possessed in perfect peace and showing no trace of 
the recent storm, he was felling trees and working 
them up into cord-wood and, having seen, was 
somehow conquered. 

"Of course I m not going to horsewhip an 
idiot!" he remarked, and betook himself off, while 
the world winked slyly behind his back, having its 
own notion as to his reasons. 

So much for the pursuit of an education. But 
there was still another enterprise to which Bill was 
prompted by his experience with the pension ex- 

37 



A Knight in Denim 

aminer, or rather by Arndt s acrid comments upon 
it. 

Under the general indictment of ignorance, 
Arndt had specified at least one particular count. 

"A man that don t even know how old he is!" 
he exclaimed, with fine scorn, and the taunt, it 
transpired in the event, struck home. 

" Y gorry, I m goin back to Ihier an* git 
my right age!" Bill suddenly announced. People 
laughed, as they were used to do, and paid little 
or no attention; but he was as good as his word, 
and the next they knew he turned up missing. He 
went afoot, without bag or baggage or provision 
of any kind; but that was likewise the way he had 
come he knew not how else to travel long dis 
tances. He could drive to Atro City, but Ohio 
was too far away for that manner of going. Rail 
roads, if you speak of them, were something he 
would have nothing to do with, further than that 
when he caught sight of a train winding in the 
distance he would stop and stare at it, if he was 
not too busy, or perhaps make it the subject of 
a sapient observation calculated to raise a doubt 
as to whether so much civilization were really a 
benefit. 

So did Bill take his departure, and the Valley had 
small expectation of having him back. But none 
the less he returned, after about a year, all un- 

38 



A Knight in Denim 

heralded and causing a very considerable aston 
ishment. In respect of its ostensible object, the 
expedition was a failure if he had been to Ohio 
and got his right age, the thing had eluded him 
afresh, and he was as much in the dark as ever 
concerning the number of his years; but at least 
it had satisfied his hunger for tramping, and hence 
forth he roamed no more, either in proud despair 
or otherwise. 

During his absence, events of some consequence 
had come to pass. 



39 



CHAPTER III 

IT was a dispensation of mercy which suffered 
Mrs. Arndt to pass over early to the sombre 
company of the shades. Only for her lack of 
sensibility she might have been the woman in the 
grim old verse who 

"had led such a miserable life, 
As unwelcome daughter and unloved wife, 
That when Death called her to be his bride, 
She hesitated, fancying that he lied." 

In her dumb, stolid way she was no doubt glad to 
die. People guessed as much and talked of sui 
cide. She lived only a month or so after Bill s 
departure, and out of that circumstance as well 
some little scandal was tortured. But, after all, 
the demise of such a person, under whatsoever 
conditions, wasn t apt to make any great stir; 
Mrs. Arndt was laid away in an unmarked grave, 
and almost with the clods that fell on her cheap 
coffin the waters of oblivion closed over the life 
that had been hers. People were, at all events, not 
too unkind to forget. 

Arndt made no pretence at mourning. He was 
sorry over the loss of that which had been at worst 

40 



A Knight in Denim 

a valuable asset, but he shed no tears. Instead 
he promptly set himself to fill the vacancy by his 
fireside, and tongues were highly prompted to wag 
when, his bereavement less than a fortnight old, 
he went among his neighbors proudly exhibiting 
a metropolitan daily newspaper wherein he had 
advertised for another wife. 

" WANTED, by a comparatively young man, with 
no children, owning, clear of encumbrance, a splendid 
farm in the most fertile region of the United States, to 
correspond with a lady of refinement and intelligence. 
Object, matrimony." 

In such alluring terms was Arndt s advertise 
ment couched he had paid a sharp lawyer to draw 
it up, and expected much of it. The Valley had its 
misgivings, and freely voiced them, but Arndt was 
confident. He had taken his first wife sight un 
seen, and she had proved no bad bargain better 
than most; she was a good worker, even though 
she hadn t so much style about her as some. "Mar- 
ryin ain t jest like swappin bosses!" he sagely 
maintained. 

The expedient proved effective at any rate he 
got him a wife, and such a wife as left him no 
grounds for complaining of the monotony of his 
fate. The second Mrs. Arndt was about as un 
like the first as she could be a flinty individual 



A Knight in Denim 

with her eye-teeth fully cut, having enough of the 
instinct of coquetry to be roguish and playful with 
her man till she had him legally enmeshed, the 
which done she hoisted her true colors and became 
a domestic tyrant. Her notion of her husband s 
proper place was under her thumb, and Arndt 
early saw fit not to demur, so that it soon was said 
of him that he dared not call his soul his own. 
A single circumstance was enough to show how 
unreservedly he bowed his neck to the yoke of ser 
vitude never more did he indulge himself in the 
luxury of coming home drunk. He was thought 
in his heart to admire the woman she had a 
swing and a swagger which sharply distinguished 
her from the Lilies of the Valley, and he may have 
relished being wedded at last to a wife with some 
style about her; but whether or no, he chose to be 
subject to her, contrary to the scriptural injunc 
tion. The neighbors, meanwhile, took every oc 
casion for the exercise of that neighborly unkind- 
ness which knows no discrimination; they recalled 
what a brute he had been, though his brutality had 
touched them but little in the day of it, and said it 
served him no more than right if he had got his 
match and a little better. They likened him to a 
toad under a harrow, and jeered at him. 

To make her still more the antithesis of her 
predecessor, and by the same token the nearer like- 

42 



A Knight in Denim 

ness of her lord, the present Mrs. Arndt was pro 
nouncedly averse to labor, and especially household 
labor. Though not in the strict sense a Lily among 
Lilies, she toiled little and spun less. But at the 
same time she was thrifty and sorely begrudged the 
cost of hired help, and the upshot was that the pair 
adopted a girl out of a public institution not a 
baby, because a baby would be a long time grow 
ing up, but a girl who was already a woman for 
strength. The institution, to tell the truth, was 
the place where waywards were restrained of their 
liberty a virtual prison, in short; and the ma 
jority of its inmates were not promising material 
for assimilation into a virtuous household. But 
here and there among the herd of incorrigibility 
was to be found a stupid girl, whose stupidity had 
made her the prey of designing villany, who, in 
other words, had no positive predilection for mis 
chief and resembled the firebrands about her in 
nothing but her misfortune. Mrs. Arndt knew 
what she was about no firebrand would serve her 
purposes, and none of that sort did she choose, but 
a passive, inert creature, big and stout, the fit can 
didate for drudgery and oppression. She had a 
past which was unwholesome enough, but she was 
no polished mirror to take taint of a breath, and 
Mrs. Arndt deemed that she had made a very happy 
stroke. 

43 



A Knight in Denim 

The girl s name was Mabel. 

When Bill Harbaugh drifted back into the Val 
ley, thus to constitute himself the reigning sensation 
of the hour, so little was any one expecting him, he 
naturally headed for Arndt s it had been his home 
last, and the homing instinct, to say nothing of 
other considerations, was enough to bend his steps 
thither. Some little time before he got there he 
was apprised of the death of the first Mrs. Arndt 
and the advent of the second, and was warned, 
with many a jocund sally, of the alteration in the 
face of things. But still he kept on, loiteringly, 
calling in to greet this one and that one as he went, 
yet holding to his way, and in due season arrived. 
Arndt was overjoyed to see him, and made much 
of his coming, even as the father made much of 
the return of the prodigal, though of course, with 
veal fetching ten cents a pound, no fatted calf was 
killed; and what was more important, he man 
aged so to communicate with his wife that she 
understood what was to be gained, and added her 
robust hospitality to her husband s. But Bill was 
not in the highest degree responsive there lay 
upon him a hesitancy which argued a bosom some 
what vexed with uncertainty. He asked awkward 
questions about the dead woman, showing that his 
interest was with her; and particularly he wanted 
to know, without circumlocution, if Arndt had beat 

44 



A Knight in Denim 

her any more. And when he could think of noth 
ing further to ask on that head, he fell thoughtful. 

"I don t see what Olgy wanted to be in such a 
hurry for," he mused, with brows strangely knitted. 
"She might a* knowd I was comin back, though 
I didn t say so." 

"No use cryin over spilt milk, Bill!" suggested 
Arndt, with soothing philosophy. 

Bill stood up as if to go. 

"Won t you stop with us awhile, Mr. Har- 
baugh ?" chirped the lady of the house in her 
best manner. 

Bill regarded her absently. "No, I guess I ll 
be makin tracks," he replied. 

And tracks he proceeded to make, speaking fig 
uratively, but only as far as the door; there he met 
Mabel, staggering in with a great armful of fire 
wood, and halted. 

"Who s this here?" he asked, eying the girl 
narrowly. 

Arndt s shrewdness did not desert him he in 
stantly conceived that here was perhaps the means 
of attaching Bill to the establishment once more. 
"That s Mabel! Mabel s our girl we ve took 
her," he explained affably. 

Bill s demeanor betrayed his interest. " Wy ye ? 
Wy ye, anyhow ?" he greeted blandly. 

The girl had nothing to say, but she gave him a 
45 



A Knight in Denim 

shy, sheepish grin, and was evidently not averse. 
When she passed on, to drop the wood in the box 
by the stove, Bill followed after. 

"Chop this yerself ?" he inquired, picking up a 
stick and examining it critically. 

Mabel nodded bashfully. 

"Thought so," Bill observed. "Kin always tell 
a woman s choppin ." He held the stick up for 
Arndt s inspection, pointing with his finger at the 
hacked and jagged end. "A woman," he ex 
pounded, "always does things the hardest way 
leastways, things that a man had ought to be 
doinV 

That was a palpable thrust at Arndt, but that 
crafty personage bore in mind the advantage to 
accrue from his complacency and affected to laugh. 
Mrs. Arndt had caught the drift, and hastened to 
be complacent, too. Mabel snickered foolishly, 
because there was that in the air which favored 
merriment rather than because she saw the point. 

Bill confessed to no purpose of staying, but he 
stayed nevertheless; and his first achievement, 
whereby he signalized his resumption of a pro 
prietor s functions, was to chop a towering pile of 
wood. 

His attitude toward Mabel, however, was quite 
different from that which he had taken toward the 
former Mrs. Arndt. Equally he made it the rule 



A Knight in Denim 

of his life to save her from the burden and heat of 
the day, totally neglecting the most pressing duties 
out-of-doors so long as there was anything he could 
do to help in the house; but he bore himself less in 
the manner of a comrade and more in that of a 
father. Now and then he was so fatherly, indeed, 
as to scold Mabel, in gentle, indulgent fashion, 
when she went wilfully wrong. That wasn t often, 
though, for the girl was by nature affectionate and 
true, and Bill s scolding hurt her as it might hurt 
a dog conscious of only the best intentions. No 
body else s scolding affected her so though Mrs. 
Arndt was to the last degree unreasonable to heap 
blame on the head of her helpless slave, and her 
tongue, fearing no consequences, was like the lash 
of a whip, Mabel in some way indued herself with 
an insensibility pretty much proof against such dis 
paragement; but Bill s reproof made her wretched. 
So he reproved her little, and resorted rather to 
admonitions, which she could understand but 
hardly. That was the rub to make Mabel un 
derstand. 

In the nature of a stumbling-block and barrier 
was a certain delicacy on his part; Mabel was 
grown a great, buxom girl, and though she was as 
unconscious in her relations with him as any child 
could be, he was in a manner reserved with her, 
as to take thought of the conventions. Perhaps, 

47 



A Knight in Denim 

in his fatherly character, he deemed it needful to 
her proper education that he so conduct himself, 
but whether or no he made a point of it. 

After all, when it came to the trial, the fatherly 
sentiment was stronger in him than any other 
even the delicacy had to give way to it when the 
two came in conflict. So much appeared when the 
weather grew warm and Mabel, with none to re 
strain her in the primal impulse which bade her 
take her comfort, went about clad in nothing but a 
cotton slip which belonged to a previous season and 
was too short for her by several inches. Of course 
the less she wore the less she cost, and that did away 
with any interference on the part of the Arndts 
no dispensation which saved money could easily 
give them scandal, and they were the girl s lawful 
guardians. But Bill s fatherliness waited upon 
no legal sanctions, and once it had overcome his 
delicacy took account of no other obstacle. One 
evening, as these two bondpeople sat apart to en 
joy together the very few minutes of leisure allowed 
them, he spoke out. It cost him an effort, to the 
end that his usually serene brow was furrowed with 
anxiety, but he spoke out notwithstanding. 

"F m you re gittin* too big a gal not to be 
wearin more clo s, Mabel," he said. 

She lifted up her eyes in, astonishment, not know 
ing what he meant. 

48 



A Knight in Denim 

"Sure, Mabel!" Bill went on. "Stockin s an 
things!" 

It was an obdurate glebe wherein he sought to 
plant the seeds of modesty, and his was a clumsy 
hand. Of the common decencies, as they are 
termed, Mabel had no more conception than a 
Hottentot, and what was even more in the way, the 
natural feminine delight in apparel was dead in her, 
if indeed it had ever been born. Bill made small 
progress with his uphill task he succeeded in 
mystifying the poor waif and spoiling her element 
ary enjoyment for the time being, and that was 
about all. When he had beaten about the bush 
somewhat, without effect, he bluntly told her she 
ought to be ashamed, but how was she to under 
stand about that, especially as he scarcely under 
stood himself? At best it was the blind leading 
the blind unsophistication seeking to sophisticate 
unsophistication. 

But Bill s placid soul was thoroughly in revolt 
over Mabel being so scantily clad he felt rather 
than knew the wrong of it, and knew it none the 
less for that. And at length he was carried on to 
take the very unexpected course of complaining 
to Mrs. Arndt in no uncertain terms by her own 
account of what happened he went at her hammer 
and tongs and talked to her as she had never in her 
life been talked to. He had told Mabel that she 

49 



A Knight in Denim 

ought to be ashamed, but now, it seemed, he was 
disposed to shift the responsibility to other shoul 
ders, for he told Mrs. Arndt, with an eloquence 
and fluency beyond anything she would look for 
in a simpleton, that it was she who ought to be 
ashamed. Will you think of it ? Such nerve- 
to say to Mrs. Arndt, before her face, that she 
ought to be ashamed. And what was even more 
startling, he declared in so many words and very 
emphatically that Mabel had got to have more 
clothes she had got to have stockings and things. 

Mrs. Arndt was made angry, have no doubt of 
that so angry that she straightway directed her 
husband to order Bill off the place. "The impu 
dent puppy!" she fumed hotly. But anger or no 
anger, thrift was still her ruling passion, and when 
Arndt dared reason with her, though she did not 
at once give up, she hesitated, and the woman who 
hesitates is, as we all know, lost. 

"Some cheap things for the gal won t kill no 
body, an it ll keep Bill from sourin*. They ll both 
work better if you let em go their own gait." It 
was so Arndt argued, and he carried his point; 
Mabel had her stockings and things, and the cloud 
vanished from Bill s brow. Nor had the man of 
the house miscalculated the profit, for henceforth 
both his servants toiled to more effect than ever. 

"They re sure a team!" chuckled Arndt, and 
5 



A Knight in Denim 

his better half, though her feelings were long re 
covering from the ruffling Bill had given them, 
could not gainsay the plain fact. 

The Valley was a fairly healthful place except 
toward the end of the summer when, by reason, 
perhaps, of the very fatness of the indifferently 
drained soil, there was likely to be more or less 
fever about. It was commonly of the walking 
variety, though, and almost never fatal the natives 
were very likely in a manner inured to its ravages; 
but when Mabel took it, she took it hard. 

No doubt she was some little time coming down, 
but it was no more like her to complain than it 
would be like a sick cow. She went about her 
work as usual, by her manner intimating noth 
ing out of the way until all at once she broke out 
whimpering, and sank down in a chair with her 
hands to her head. 

Mrs. Arndt was sharply on her guard against the 
devices of indolence, and she at once conceived 
that the girl was feigning. It was some sort of a 
play designed to cover a purpose to shirk, thought 
Mrs. Arndt, and acted accordingly. 

"What s the matter?" she demanded harshly. 

Mabel s only answer was to clutch at her temples 
and moan. To the woman it looked like over 
done pretence. 

"Get up!" she snapped. 
5 1 



A Knight in Denim 

"Oh, oh!" wailed Mabel, rocking to and fro. 

Her eyes were wild and vacant, but it would 
never do to be too easily fooled if there was 
imposture here there was even worse, for impost 
ure implied defiance, and defiance was intolerable. 
Mrs. Arndt stood a moment undecided, and then 
she struck the girl not gently, but a resounding 
cufF over her ears. For a little it looked as if 
she had done the needful thing Mabel staggered 
to her feet and started off, as if to go on with her 
work, but before she had taken more than a step 
or two she stumbled, swayed weakly, and crumpled 
down in a heap on the floor. 

Was she really sick, then ? Mrs. Arndt began 
to be seized with misgivings. She bent over the 
prostrate figure, and her misgivings grew that 
rattle in the throat, that spasmodic twitching of 
the limbs, that rolling of the eyeballs, so swollen 
all of a sudden that they seemed like to burst, these 
were no part of a pretence, as even the unwilling 
glance could not but discern. The woman was 
frightened. 

"Be you sick, Mabel?" she quavered, weakly 
enough now that she had a real emergency to 
face. 

Just then Bill came in. Against him the lady of 
the house had still her grudge, and it gratified her 
to treat him with as much incivility as she could 

5 2 



A Knight in Denim 

indulge herself in with impunity a good deal, 
by the way, since he was mostly indifferent to her 
moods; but hereupon she was so fluttered that she 
forgot her revenge. 

"Oh, Mr. Harbaugh, I do believe Mabel s took 
sick!" she cried. "I wonder if Mr. Arndt hadn t 
ought to go for the doctor?" 

Bill spake no word, but without the least hesita 
tion or indecision gathered the great girl in his 
arms as he might an infant, and bore her away to 
her poor attic under the roof, where he undressed 
her and put her to bed. Mrs. Arndt offered, not 
without a sincere wish to be helpful, to attend to 
those intimate offices which belonged more prop 
erly, since the patient was a woman, to a woman, 
but he paid no attention to her her belated solici 
tude went all unacknowledged. Arndt was even 
more frightened than his wife, and fetched a doc 
tor in all haste, but by the time he arrived there 
was nothing left for him to do. Bill had mean 
while packed Mabel about with cloths which he 
kept cold with water from the spring, and his 
instinct had wrought so well that science could 
propose nothing better. The doctor shook his 
head it was a desperate case; but there was no 
alternative to letting the fever run its course, since 
it had got its start. 

The siege lasted something near two weeks, and 
53 



A Knight in Denim 

during that time, whether by day or by night, Bill 
never once remitted his watch. If he slept it was 
only as Mabel slept, and by her bedside, ready to 
spring up at her first manifestation of restlessness. 
She was delirious most of the time, but never too 
flighty to be reaching out for him with her hand and 
calling to him not to leave her. Mrs. Arndt grew 
more and more anxious, as the malady progressed, 
to lend a hand, if only for the sake of appearances, 
but the sick girl could not endure her presence 
even, let alone her ministrations. But the way 
things were going troubled the woman so that 
once, when Mabel had a lucid interval, she took 
the occasion to protest as kindly as she could. 

"Come now!" she coaxed. "Ain t ye shamed, 
such a big gal, havin a man liftin ye out an put- 
tin ye back ?" 

No, Mabel was not ashamed. On the contrary, 
she would have none but a man, since that man 
was Bill. She clung to him and made no more of 
the impropriety than any dumb beast might have 
done. Indeed, there could be no impropriety be 
tween these two except as a sense more nice than 
wise should gratituously import it even Mrs. 
Arndt came at length into an understanding of 
that, and held her peace. 

Mabel died, and they gave her quite a brave 
funeral considering who and what she had been. 

54 



A Knight in Denim 

The Arndts knew perfectly well what the gentle 
gossip of the Valley would say it would say that 
they had killed the girl by their neglect and abuse; 
and the brave funeral was designed first of all to 
forestall the scandal of the world it would be 
something to point to in denial of injurious report. 
But there was even more method in it Arndt s 
shrewdness had rendered him justly apprehensive 
of what Bill might take it into his head to do 
now that Mabel w r as gone, and he estimated that 
it would tickle the fellow s vanity to have out a 
plumed hearse, and a minister, and a choir to 
sing hymns. So great a display was not to be 
provided for nothing, but if it should have the 
effect of pleasing Bill and keeping him where he 
was, the money would have been profitably in 
vested. 

Bill s demeanor was hardly what you would ex 
pect. He remained perfectly cheerful during the 
funeral services, never went near the coffin so far 
as any one observed, and spent most of the time 
outside the house talking with various persons 
about all sorts of irrelevant subjects. The burial 
was to be in Atro City, where the nearest ceme 
tery was, and a place was reserved for him in the 
carriage which conveyed the mourners; but he 
declined it, saying he guessed he wouldn t pester 
about going. 

55 



A Knight in Denim 

Whatever its effect on gossip, the funeral availed 
nothing in respect of its other ulterior purpose 
from that day forward Bill never set foot in Arndt s 
house. The connection was definitely severed. 



CHAPTER IV 

IT was while Bill tarried away, in quest of his 
right age, that the Haldeans came and took up 
their residence in the Valley. They were exiles, as 
any one could see, and a different sort altogether. 

Tudor Haldean, the man, plainly accounted 
himself better than his new neighbors, and these 
were not too poor in spirit to respond by holding 
aloof there would be no crawling on their part, 
mind you that, showing that a soul could be shift 
less yet proud. Esther Haldean, the wife, put on 
no such airs as her husband, but the common 
regard knew not how to separate her from him 
whom God had joined neighbors might not easily 
sunder, even to save a woman from the unpopu 
larity which she perhaps did not deserve. So the 
Haldeans had rather a lonesome life of it. 

Neighbors, however, were not so aloof as to deny 
themselves the luxury of making guesses about the 
family s affairs. On the contrary, they guessed 
endlessly, and while conjecture could not be so 
definite as to put an end to all uncertainty, sundry 
points of information about the Haldeans came to 
be taken for granted. It was not in the least 

57 



A Knight in Denim 

doubted, for instance, that they had seen better 
days, or that they were so far reduced as to have 
little or nothing left beyond the farm where they 
were now establishing themselves. That farm was 
the Putnam place, which had notoriously lain 
under a mortgage to Eastern parties these years. 
In that mortgage the Valley discerned the cir 
cumstance which had brought the Haldeans here 
to live it was the only salvage left of what had 
once been a proud fortune, now reduced to wreck 
by a man s fatuous pig-headedness. Neighborly 
guesses scrupled not to make Haldean out pig 
headed he was just the sort to go on and break 
himself by his obstinate folly. Most likely the 
mortgage had survived only by reason of its being 
in the wife s name, and therefore not liable for the 
husband s debts. 

The Haldeans were not envied of their freehold. 
Among Lilies of the Valley there was none too poor 
to look down with disdain upon the Putnam place 
because in the midst of abounding fatness it was 
so lean. Putnam, the original owner, long since 
vanished from these scenes, had been possessed of 
the grotesque delusion that sand was better than 
loam it was prompter to catch the heat of spring 
and by that yielded its fruits so much earlier as to 
more than compensate for their relatively scanty 
measure. In that view he had chosen his land, 

58 



A Knight in Denim 

but only to fall in with the prevailing fashion and 
neglect it, to the end that his theory remained a 
theory, practically untried, while the Putnam place 
became the laughing-stock of the world, with no 
achievement to its credit save the mortgage, and 
that was proof of nothing but the gullibility of 
Eastern capital. The spectacle of somebody try 
ing to wring a living out of those meagre acres was 
likely to be diverting, and the neighbors settled 
back to enjoy it, with nothing further from their 
hearts than envy. 

The new lord of the manor hadn t been long in 
possession until he caused it to be known that he 
had christened his seat Throstlewood. That was 
the occasion of Homeric laughter all up and down 
the countryside, and the Valley mocked the pal 
pable affection with open throat. 

Haldean had some ready money to begin with, 
or, if not money, credit sufficient to enable him 
to make astonishing expenditures. The buildings 
that went with the land were of the usual kind, 
only uncommonly run down with the hard usage 
a farm always gets at the hands of leaseholders. 
There was a low house, with walls of butternut 
logs and roof of shakes, and gathered about the 
various hovels needful to the carrying on of a 
primitive agriculture. But Haldean had forth 
with brought in something like a car-load of sawed 

59 



A Knight in Denim 

lumber of the costliest grade; and it was no sooner 
delivered on the premises than carpenters seemed 
to spring out of the ground, so numerous were they. 
The Valley rubbed its eyes incredulously. Who 
had ever seen a real carpenter at work in those 
regions, where every man builded with his own 
hands as best he might, nor thought of any other 
manner of doing ? And these astounding artisans 
labored to some purpose, too, for almost as by 
magic there emerged under their hands an unprec 
edented structure, rising on the foundation of the 
old house, but transforming it wholly a species of 
palace sheathed in clapboards, roofed over with 
shingles, and having for its front a porch with 
pillars. The porch was the culminating wonder 
contemplating it as it took form, the Valley fairly 
gasped for breath. 

In the course of these marvellous operations 
somebody s children, abnormally sharp at eaves 
dropping, made shift to overhear a conversation 
between the man and his wife as they stood off at 
a distance to view the work; whence it appeared 
that the household was divided against itself. If 
the children were to be believed, and none chose to 
doubt them, the woman was opposed to so much 
display. 

"Oh, Tudor!" she protested. "It s so much 
more than we can afford! Only think what the 

60 



A Knight in Denim 

porch is costing, and how little real use we shall 
have for it!" 

"Indeed!" Haldean rejoined, and people already 
knew him well enough to imagine his irony. 
"What would you have ?" 

"The old house would have answered, don t 
you think, with a little patching here and there ?" 

"The old house was a pigsty. Have you no 
pride?" 

"We are too poor to be proud, Tudor!" 

But here the man lost his patience. "Very 
well!" he snarled. "If you consider the house too 
good for you, I shall have one of the hotels left as 
it is for your especial accommodation." 

Of course he was saying, by that, the unkindest 
thing he could lay his tongue to, and the woman 
fell silent. Concerning her, neighbors, in the light 
of the children s eavesdropping, entertained hence 
forth a better notion. They were getting to dis 
like Haldean more and more, and if he wasn t on 
good terms with his wife, that was certainly a point 
in her favor. 

But the porch was destined never to be finished, 
and the clapboards with their satin surfaces were 
not to know the protection of paint. That was 
the Valley s revenge, or part of it. Neighbors 
would never forget the day when the carpenters, 
in default of their pay, all at once knocked off 

61 



A Knight in Denim 

work and departed, not stopping even to take their 
staging down. A portion of the staging still stands 
as they left it, or did at last accounts. 

Manifestly, it could mean only one thing the 
new family were come to the end of their rope. 
Nor was the abandoned porch the extent of the mel 
ancholy testimony. The master of Throstlewood 
had formed and suffered to be advertised ambitious 
designs in the way of high farming, and their sud 
den collapse served to swell the mournful tale of a 
purse drained dry. From being the scene of amaz 
ing activities the farm fell straightway under such 
a neglect as was unknown, even in the Valley, where 
neglect was the usual thing. Accustomed as they 
were to thriftlessness, Lilies fairly stood aghast to 
see how Haldean let his concerns go at sixes and 
sevens. He stalked about the premises like an 
uneasy ghost, or sat brooding on his unfinished 
porch, but never was he seen to lift a finger to do 
any of the work which cried out to be done. Once 
some predatory cattle broke into the young corn, 
and the master, though he saw them at their de 
struction, did nothing to stop it. And when-, on 
that occasion, Mrs. Haldean ran out to the field, 
evidently bent on driving the cattle away, her hus 
band roughly ordered her back. 

"If you don t know what is becoming to one in 
your station, you shall be instructed!" he called 

62 



A Knight in Denim 

out, so loudly that people passing in the road heard 
him. 

That was the fractious unreason of the man- 
people well understood that he rebuked his wife 
not so much in fear of her demeaning herself as 
because he was sore and sour and ungenerous 
enough withal to vent his spleen upon a helpless 
and innocent woman. 

Throstlewood presented a scene of desolation- 
neighbors straggling back from Mabel s funeral 
remarked as much, in passing; and they were fur 
thermore interested to observe Bill Harbaugh sit 
ting on the edge of the porch, his hands clasped 
about his knees, talking with Haldean, who was 
enthroned above him, in the stateliness of a huge 
rocker. 



CHAPTER V 

wy ye, cap ? Wy ye, anyhow ? " The 
greeting was not exactly in Bill s usual 
style, but neither was Haldean a usual character. 
The man s bearing had something unusually pom 
pous about it, such as almost to demand the mili 
tary title. 

His rejoinder was in keeping, cold and haughty. 
"How do you do, sir?" 

"Middlin , cap. Middlin , consid rin ." 

Bill helped himself to a seat on the edge of the 
porch, all unbidden, and took off his hat to catch 
the cooling breeze. By that he let his mental de 
ficiency be seen his face, owing to the light it held 
of a definite purpose, was not more vacant, for the 
moment, than many another, but there was no es 
caping the significance of the low, sloping brow. 
Bill had handsome hair, though, and it fell in be 
coming disorder as he ran his fingers through it. 
A great, genial, faithful ox has sometimes similar 
hair, and is not less conscious of its beauty. 

Haldean unbent a trifle. "Rather warm," he 
observed. 

" Tis so, for a fact," replied Bill. 
64 



A Knight in Denim 

" I can t profess to know much about those mat 
ters, but I dare say such weather is favorable to 
the crops, on the whole?" Haldean deigned to 
make talk, even though, like his bearing, it smacked 
of dress parade. 

"That there depends, cap. It s good, pervided. 
It s good for corn, but it s li ble to rust wheat." 
Nothing gratified Bill s vanity more than the op 
portunity to enlighten ignorance. "Wheat s just 
about in the milk, cap, an if the weather don t 
hold bout so cool, why, it s li ble to rust. It ll 
rust mighty sudden, too. Mebbe you wouldn t 
believe how quick it ll rust. Know the Dingley 
boys ?" 

Haldean shook his head. "I m very little ac 
quainted hereabouts." 

"Most likely you wouldn t be apt to know the 
Dingley boys, bein as they was back in Ihier so. 
But, anyhow, they had em a hunderd an sixty into 
wheat, an it was some wheat, now I say. Nobody 
never see no better wheat, I don t guess. The 
boys, they was boys like, just sort of commencin 
to begin, as ye might say, an so they nach ly cal - 
lated they wouldn t be in no hurry bout buyin of 
em a reaper till they was right down sure they was 
goin* to have a crop just nach ly that way, cap. 
So they held off bout the reaper, an they held off, 
till the day afore they was ready to go to cuttin*. 

65 



A Knight in Denim 

They figgered that close just the day afore they 
was a-goin to strike in an* begin cuttin they went 
to town, bout fifteen mile off well, mebbe twa n t 
fifteen, an* then ag in it might be more n fifteen 
anyhow, they went, an the wheat was lookin fine 
as silk, an when they come back with their reaper, 
y gorry! what d ye s pose ? That there wheat 
was clean gone, with the rust! Rust took it that 
sudden. As I was sayin , mebbe you wouldn t 
most likely be apt to believe how sudden rust ll 
take wheat." 

Haldean listened with polite attention. "I 
should think that might be rather a discouraging 
experience," he observed. 

Scouragin ! Say, cap, I don t guess you know 
what them there boys up an did ? Them there 
Dingley boys Dick an Dan no, twas the Hank 
boys that was Dick an Dan. Well, anyhow, they 
bawled, cap both of em. They up an bawled. 
Dunno s I blame em, though." 

There ensued a silence of considerable duration. 
Bill chewed the end of a spear of timothy and 
gazed off over the desolate, neglected fields, while 
Haldean, with visible restraint and unfailing dig 
nity, rocked to and fro. 

It was Bill who spoke first. "Havin the reaper 
on their hands so," quoth he. 

Haldean was at a loss he hadn t burdened his 
66 



A Knight in Denim 

memory with the thread of the former discourse. 
"I beg your pardon ?" said he. 

"Them there Dingley boys," Bill explained. 
"You re right, cap, it s what ye might call might 
call- 

" Discouraging ?" 

"That s it scouragin ! Don t blame em for 
bawlin , not a mite. Don t know but I might 
bawl myself if I was a couple o boys just com- 
mencin to begin like." 

Another interval of silence, and once more it was 
broken by Bill. "What ll ye take fer yer farm, 
cap ?" he asked, all of a sudden. 

Haldean glanced down at the figure before him, 
and his haughty face softened with a faint smile 
of amusement. "I haven t thought of selling," he 
said. "Do you wish to buy?" 

"M yeah!" assented Bill guardedly, in the 
manner of a shrewd bargainer. "I don t mind 
sayin I ve thought some bout buyin , if I kin find 
what suits me. Bout how much ll ye be askin ?" 

"Oh, I haven t set a price, you know." 

"I mean the hull shootin -match hosses an 
tools an ev rything so s t I kin go right to work. 
What s yer figger, cap? Come, now!" 

Haldean laughed indulgently, as a grown person 
might laugh at the vagaries of a child. "What is 
your name, sir, if I may ask ?" 

67 



A Knight in Denim 

"My name s Bill. Most ev rybody knows me. 
Bill!" 

" I dare say. I am much of a stranger in these 
parts myself. To tell the truth, Mr. Bill, I 
haven t an idea what would be a fair price for the 
property. Not having seriously thought of sell- 
ing- 

"How d ten thousan strike ye?" 

Now that was a surprising proposal in more 
respects than one. Never in the world before had 
Bill been known to offer more than twenty-five 
hundred for a farm. How had his notions become 
so enlarged ? It must be the effect of travel hav 
ing been abroad, he had come back in such degree 
broadened. 

Haldean s reply signified nothing further than 
that he was grown a little impatient of these nego 
tiations with an obvious beggar and a probable 
fool. He knew nothing, of course, of their esoteric 
meaning, as it might be termed, and the prospect 
of results satisfactory to Bill s purpose were not 
particularly bright had not lucky chance come to 
the rescue. 

Some choice roses had been set out a little way 
off from the porch the inception of an ambitious 
scheme of landscape gardening which never got 
any further. They were rather delicate plants, 
and the rude native grasses had so sprung up to 

68 



A Knight in Denim 

choke them that they drooped under the unequal 
and unaccustomed struggle. The most unprac 
tised eye might perceive what they stood in need of, 
and the dullest sensibility could hardly escape an 
impulse to go to their relief; and so it happened 
that Mrs. Haldean was down on her knees beside 
them, rooting out the weeds with her hands. 

She was not in sight at first, but she worked 
about by little and little till presently she let her 
self be seen from the porch. Whereupon, without 
ceremony or ado, Bill rose up hurriedly and went 
over to her. 

"Lemme show ye!" said he. "You just sed- 
down on the pi-azzer an lemme show ye. My 
hands is tough taint fit for yourn to be pokin in 
mongst all them there prickles." 

"You shouldn t garden without gloves, Essie!" 
remarked Haldean, in a tone of mild reproof. His 
mood was less wolfish than it had been the day he 
ordered her back from driving the cattle out of the 
corn. 

"Oh, gloves are so clumsy they spoil half the 
fun!" she made answer. 

Bill s sudden approach and abrupt manner of 
address had startled her, but he confronted her 
with a face so friendly and solicitous that she had 
to smile back at him. His wasn t a bad face at all 
when he smiled that way. 



A Knight in Denim 

"Come, now!" he coaxed brusquely. "You just 
seddown there on the pi-azzer an watch me git 
after them there weeds. I ll show em! An I d 
like to see the prickles that d hurt me. My hands 
is tough I don t guess luther ain t no tougher." 

It was no idle vaunt. The choicest and most del 
icate rose has its cruel thorns, but Bill s big, pow 
erful hands were proof against them, as straight 
way appeared. They were deft hands, too, and 
they gave the weeds short shrift, even as he had 
intimated they would. 

Mrs. Haldean looked on admiringly. "I wish 
I could make the ground look so fresh and clean 
and light," said she. "Somehow the grass always 
breaks off when I try to pull it up. It s nice to 
know how to do things useful things." 

"Not s posin you ve got somebody to do em 
for ye," said Bill, with a radiant look. 

"Oh, I so love to do the work myself I love to 
dig in the dirt above all things!" 

"You don t aim to tell me!" 

"It s such a good medicine. When I ve any 
thing on my mind, there s nothing will cure it like 
digging in the dirt." 

"Well, now! Don t know s I ever had nothin 
ailin of me, still it s always handy to know what s 
good for what. I always like to know what s good 
for what, it comes in so handy like, first ye know. 

7 



A Knight in Denim 

Know what s good for when ye hain t feelin tall 
good, sort of?" 

Mrs. Haldean shook her head with a gravity 
which carried with it some suggestion of effort. 

"Smart-weed!" said Bill earnestly. "When I 
hain t feelin tall good, sort of, I just set a can o 
smart-weed on the stove to-night like, an in the 
mornin* I ll feel a hull lot better. Set a can o 
smart-weed on the stove the night before, an* in the 
mornin you ll feel better." 

"That s surely worth knowing!" said Mrs. Hal- 
dean, with laughter not to be denied in her eyes. 

Haldean had listened with a deprecatory air. 
Considering who the parties to it were, the conver 
sation was flowing rather too easily to comport 
with the best ideals of social subordination. And 
now he affected to stifle a yawn. 

"Gardening is no doubt a proper pastime, but 
one should think of one s hands," he observed 
magisterially. 

At the sound of his voice the laughter died out of 
the woman s eyes. "Gloves are so hot!" she re 
joined, without spirit. 

Bill kept on grubbing at the weeds, but not too 
busily to put in his oar. "You re right," he com 
mented vociferously. "Gloves is hot. I ve wore 
em afore now where the pizen ivory was into the 
wheat, an , y gorry! they re hot. I don t blame 

7 1 



A Knight in Denim 

nobody for not wantin to wear no gloves, nohow. 
They re hot you re right. She s right bout the 
gloves bein hot, cap!" 

A frown of displeasure furrowed the master s 
brow distinctly admonitory in character and fit to 
remind an inferior with any feeling not to be too 
forward. But Bill, as it chanced, was not looking 
that way, and the hint went for nothing. 

" By the by," said Haldean, turning the subject, 
as not to seem to be annoyed by what was after all 
only a trifle, "remind me to see about a new maid 
to-morrow." 

His wife s brow had its shadow, too, hereupon. 
"Really, Tudor, I would rather not have a maid 
for the present, anyway," she said, after a mo 
ment s hesitation. 

"And why not, pray?" 

"Because " She checked herself. "You 
know why the other girl went away." 

As a matter of fact, everybody knew. The girl 
had gone away, as the carpenters had gone, for the 
reason that wages were not forthcoming. And 
while she had been patient, tarrying long until 
but a few days since, indeed she proved at last 
far from reticent, and the Valley was even now in 
a delectable ferment of scandal over her revela 
tions. Just as everybody had confidently believed, 
Haldean was a species of Bluebeard in his home. 

72 



A Knight in Denim 

Mrs. Haldean was good and kind and sensible and 
unassuming, and it was for her sake that the girl 
had been patient; but Haldean was in the nature 
of a Bluebeard. 

And now he stood up with cold formality, letting 
it be seen that he was offended. "Very well as 
you like!" he said, and retired into the house. 

The woman sat very still, watching Bill at the 
roses. But if he had already astonished her, the 
half in that respect was not told he was to aston 
ish her still more. All at once he straightened up, 
rested his hands on his hips, and regarded her with 
a glance so glowing that she was disconcerted. 

"Essie, eh?" he chuckled. "Don t know s I 
ever know d nobody by the name of Essie afore, 
but, y gorry! I like it. Essie! Y gorry! yes." 

And with that most extraordinary series of re 
flections he pounced on a fresh bush, tearing the 
weeds out by the handful, and chuckling the while 
in the utmost apparent satisfaction. Mrs. Hal- 
dean s countenance betrayed varying emotions, but 
though she wore something of an air of severity at 
first, almost of resentment, in fact for unless you 
understood Bill s familiarity there was a smack of 
impudence about it indulgence shortly prevailed. 

"Where do you live ?" she asked kindly. 

"Mostly nowheres at the present time," he an 
swered. 

73 



A Knight in Denim 

"Wouldn t you won t you have supper with 
us?" 

"I was just a-goin to speak about supper. I 
was just a-goin to say that I d prob ly most likely 
be a-stoppin to supper. I always like to let the 
women-folks know a leetle ahead when I m goin* to 
stop like. I cal late they like it a hull lot better 
than bein dropped in on all unbeknownst, when 
they hain t spectin nobody." 

Bill finished all the roses, and some hollyhocks 
besides, so neglected hitherto that they shamed 
their name, but looking up forthwith as in testi 
mony of their gratitude. Then he went in to sup 
per and gushed a stream of small talk so copious 
and cheerful that even Haldean unbent and was 
willing to be diverted in the manner of a feudal 
lord by his clown. 

As for the woman, this curious manner of man 
who had come drifting in to her world so unbidden 
yet so confident of his welcome interested her more 
and more. No matter what he did, and in spite 
of his uncouthness, there was something engaging 
about him. How could a complete stranger man 
age to take such liberties, yet divest them of all 
color of impropriety ? Was it because of his being 
a simpleton ? Any one could see that he lacked of 
wit, and a witless wight might claim the privileges 
and immunities of a child such might well be the 

74 



A Knight in Denim 

substance of his inoffensiveness. Yet not for a 
moment was his deficiency a bid for pity his 
demeanor positively forbade pity, in fact, he car 
ried himself so upstandingly, failing in nothing of 
assurance. 

She hadn t learned his name yet, and while they 
were at supper she asked about that. 

"Bill!" he said simply. 

"William " 

She spoke it with a rising inflection, as to invite him 
to supply the rest, but he was not pleased to do so. 

"No Bill! Folks mostly calls me Bill. You 
kin call me Bill. That there s my name Bill. 
Just call me Bill like." 

And she did so, henceforth, without misgiving 
as to whether she ought. Any title of respect, such 
as a woman is commonly expected to accord a 
bearded man, was plainly out of place here. 
Bill s beard made him out none the less a child 
in respect of his immunities. 

After supper he repaired to the barn and put 
things to rights there with adroit and diligent hand. 
Much sorely needed to be done, so much that he 
couldn t do it all at once, though it was quite dark 
when at length he gave over and returned to the 
house. 

"Where be I goin to bunk, Essie ?" he inquired, 
with off-hand ease. 

75 



A Knight in Denim 

That was a touch of familiarity which went be 
yond anything yet, and it made the woman gasp a 
little, and wonder a little if she ought not to rebuke 
it lest she encourage what should not be encour 
aged. And she was heartily glad, moreover, that 
her husband had not been by to hear it. Yet some 
how Bill s implied avowal of an intention to stay 
was pleasing to her. "I don t know I shall have 
to speak to Mr. Haldean," she replied, without 
a hint at a rebuke. 

Mr. Haldean, it would seem, had been taking 
counsel of prudence, perhaps with a touch of 
Arndt s variety of shrewdness; and when the mat 
ter was broached to him, instead of making dif 
ficulties or entering a flat veto, as would have been 
like him, he directed that the fellow be lodged. 
"He promises to be a valuable hand," quoth the 
master, and with that sanction Bill became a fixture. 

"And roam no more in proud despair!" 

they heard him singing, bright and early next 
morning, as he milked the cows. 

o 7 

He explained his outburst on utilitarian grounds. 
"Cows gives down their milk better when they re 
sung to!" he declared. 

In the light of recent experiences Essie could not 
well help but be concerned about Bill s pay; and 
so greatly troubled was she when she learned what 

76 



A Knight in Denim 

the terms of his service were that she had to speak 
out. 

" He s not very bright, and it s wrong to let him 
work for nothing, just because he is willing," she 
protested, with more spirit than she was used to 
show. 

But Haldean cherished no scruples. There are 
bound to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, 
your ridiculous democracy to the contrary not 
withstanding!" he retorted. So far as he was 
concerned, the arrangement couldn t be more sat 
isfactory, and his satisfaction was paramount. 

And still there turned out to be a fly in the oint 
ment. The new hand, while undeniably valuable, 
presently developed a quality or two not much to 
the master s liking. Notably, he had no proper 
respect for his betters, as such. He regarded the 
farm as absolutely his own, although no purchase 
had been consummated, even in form, and the 
family as something between guests and depend 
ents. If his attitude toward Essie, apart from its 
uncouthness, was chivalrous and considerate, he 
treated the head of the household with serene in 
difference, minding his orders no more than he 
would mind a boy s prattle, and deigning to con 
sult him in nothing. In a word, he acknowledged 
no authority superior to his own. 

He let his position be known the very next day. 
77 



A Knight in Denim 

While all the crops were clamoring for help, the 
corn seemed to clamor the loudest, and he went to 
its rescue first; but though the need was urgent, 
he spent almost the entire forenoon tinkering the 
cultivator. To the uninformed eye it looked very 
like dallying in the face of necessity, and Hal- 
dean deemed it time to show who was in com 
mand. 

"Come, come, William!" he said sharply. 
"You are losing too much valuable time." 

Bill went placidly on with his tinkering. After 
awhile he vouchsafed this rejoinder: "Keep yer 
shirt on, cap keep yer shirt on! Got to git this 
contraption xactly c rect." It proved how far he 
was from being ruffled when, after a moment, he 
indulgently explained : " Know when a cultivator s 
xactly c rect ? It s when you kin hear her rippin 
the roots on both sides. If you hear her rippin 
the roots on both sides, then you kin know she s 
xactly c rect." 

Not till after dinner did he get started cultivating, 
but once at it he pushed the horse almost to a trot 
and worked as long as he could see; and though 
the incident had given the master to put such a 
curb on his tongue as he was not accustomed to, 
he could be glad in the event that he had done so. 
The profit was daily more obvious, and in virtue 
thereof Haldean learned to forbear, so that the odd 

78 



A Knight in Denim 

relation presently adjusted itself. Bill wrought as 
he would, and he wrought marvels. 

He could tell next to nothing of what he had seen 
in Ohio, whither he had gone in quest of his right 
age, but a few impressions had found some sort 
of a lodgement in his feeble memory, and among 
them, perhaps most vivid of all, was the way they 
grew clover back there. He talked endlessly about 
the clover, and he didn t stop with talking, but 
procured seed, though it was very costly, and sowed 
some acres of Throstlewood with it. The neigh 
bors perceived what he was about and laughed. 
The grain of clover is little and light, and Bill sowed 
it by hand on a windy day, and neighbors were of 
the opinion that he might better dig a hole and 
dump all the seed down at once it would save 
work and bring just as good results. But for once 
the prophets of evil were wrong the clover came 
up and made a wellnigh perfect stand, and when 
it blossomed the field was like some rich red tapes 
try, so thickly and evenly did the plants grow. The 
prophets were not silenced, however they freely 
predicted that there wasn t room on the ground to 
cure so heavy a crop of grass; and once more they 
spoke only to be confounded. Bill cut the clover 
duly, let it lie in the swath overnight, next day 
put it up in small bunches, after a day or two 
doubled these into bigger bunches, in another day 

79 



A Knight in Denim 

or two repeated the process. To the vision nar 
rowed by tradition he looked to be about a species 
of foolery, yet when, at the end of a week, he hauled 
the hay to the stack, it was perfectly bright and 
sweet. 

"That there s how they do it back in Ihier!" he 
declared. 

Brag ? Bill bragged without ceasing. All up 
and down the Valley his boastful discoursings were 
to be heard. 



80 



CHAPTER VI 

THROSTLEWOOD S nearest neighbors were 
the Dorseys, and they, too, were not in the 
strictest sense of the term Lilies of the Valley. 
Mrs. Dorsey especially was quite another kind of 
person, and that circumstance led to an intimacy 
not destined to the happiest ending. An odd as 
sortment were the Dorseys. If the man was thor 
oughly Irish, his wife, on the other hand, was as 
thoroughly English, and there was, moreover, a 
marked disparity of culture between them. Where 
as Dorsey was frankly and without apology a rude 
peasant, his wife had more than a little of refine 
ment about her. Her refinement it was which 
made her different from the other neighbors, and 
you could guess how it came about when you 
learned that she had been for many years a servant 
in English families of the better class, where man 
ners were so much the order of the day that even 
the help acquired them. 

The Haldeans in their prosperity exhibited that 
which seemed to forbid neighborly advances, and 
the Valley at large, easily touched in its pride, 
made none. During those early days of ostenta- 

81 



A Knight in Denim 

tion the family formed no social connections what 
ever; but when their calamity came upon them in 
the sight of the world, and they looked so desolate 
and forsaken, it was only natural that the neigh 
bors, though gratified, should be softened withal. 
Nor was curiosity likely to be lessened by what had 
taken place, and now that circumstances gave the 
color of Christian duty to its indulgence, women 
folks wondered if they ought not to call. 

And particularly Mrs. Dorsey, who was some 
how so different. She not only wondered about 
calling, but called. 

Essie saw her coming with genuine pleasure, and 
it cost her no effort to be gracious. She was Eng 
lish herself, though she could not remember her 
native land, and knew it only by hearsay. 

"I was born in Somerset," she said. "Lorna 
Doone s country, you know. Just over the line 
from Devonshire, I believe." 

"Devonshire, is it!" exclaimed Mrs. Dorsey, 
glowing. "I lived long in sight of the seat of the 
noble Duke of Devonshire, ma am. Chatsworth, it 
was called. That would be in Derbyshire, ma am 
near Addon All. Belike you ve heard accounts 
of Addon All, and Dorothy Vernon, ma am?" 

She had seen a good deal, for one in her station. 
Her parents had lived in Bedford, and she could 
speak interestingly of the relics of John Bunyan, 

82 



A Knight in Denim 

preserved proudly in the parish church, though the 
learned tinker had been such a Baptist. Once she 
had been attached to a family which summered in 
Scotland, and took her along with them, so that she 
had traversed the tight little island from end to end. 
With but scant learning, wherefore she should con 
cern herself with historic and literary associations, 
a native gift of shrewd discrimination had never 
theless stored her mind with a really unusual fund 
of information; and she was ready with her tongue, 
though never pert or forward. Essie was more and 
more delighted; it seemed like finding a jewel in a 
heap of rubbish to encounter a person with a soul 
above beer and skittles and who could talk en 
tertainingly about things worth while; and Essie 
it was who introduced Mrs. Dorsey to the lord of 
the manor. 

"You two can talk about England, while I lis 
ten," said she, and sincerely rejoiced in the meeting. 

Haldean, on his part, chose to be entirely polite. 
If his manner was condescending, that didn t so 
much matter with an Englishwoman brought up 
to service. "My home was in Hampshire," he 
said. 

Mrs. Dorsey glowed more than ever. "I was 
always told as ow superior people lived in Amp- 
shire!" she rejoined. 

" I remember it as a very lovely country, indeed," 

83 



A Knight in Denim 

Haldean went on, unbending visibly. "In fact, 
I cannot conceive of a lovelier. Of course one is 
naturally partial to the scenes of one s youth. Only 
to-day I was recalling to mind the deep roads, worn 
into the chalk by the wagons and the rains you 
will hardly imagine how pleasant they are of a 
summer day. I have never seen anything like 
them elsewhere." 

"Dear, dear!" protested Mrs. Dorsey. "I 
thought Derbyshire was fine, but Ampshire must 
be finer." 

"The battle-field of Hastings is only a few miles 
from my birthplace, though in Sussex. And our 
nearest river was the Avon. 

"The Avon to the Severn flows, 

The Severn to the sea, 
But Wiclif s bones are scattered wide 
And far as their waters be!" 

quoted the master unctuously. 

"What a thing it is to be learned!" chirped Mrs. 
Dorsey, and her shaft of flattery by no means fell 
short. 

Essie did not fail to respond to these grateful and 
neighborly advances. She felt herself not unlike 
a pilgrim in a desert who, having no reason to ex 
pect anything but brackish water and little of that, 
discovers a living spring. Circumstances, in other 



A Knight in Denim 

words, served to enhance Mrs. Dorsey s quality in 
the exile s eyes, so that she was strongly attracted, 
and genuinely desirous of keeping up the connec 
tion. She made haste to return the call, and en 
joyed herself no less than at their first meeting. 
Mrs. Dorsey presented her numerous children, 
with profuse apologies for their appearance, which 
was not in the least discreditable, and for their 
behavior, which she denounced as savage, whereas 
it was anything but that. They appeared, indeed, 
an uncommonly well-bred family, and Essie took 
a decided fancy to them; especially Mildred, the 
eight year old, with her saucy face and tangled 
curls. She vowed she would give the world to 
have a little girl of her own like Mildred. The 
sentiment was no pretence. 

"Anyway, you ll come and see me often, won t 
you ?" coaxed Essie, having the child familiarly on 
her lap. 

Yes, Mildred would. She made the engagement 
gravely, and she was as good as her word. She 
presented herself the very next day, in fact. 

"Please, Mrs. Haldean, me mither do send her 
compliments, and have you a bit of flour you can 
spare her for a few days, till she will have a sack 
home from the village ?" she piped, and courtesied; 
and Essie thought it wonderfully pretty, and gave 
her the flour gladly, with a sweet cake for herself. 



A Knight in Denim 

But the time came when that form of words 
it proved to be a form acquired, by reason of 
much repetition, an irksome sound. The grace of 
good manners and the charm of intelligent conver 
sation will go far, but even they will not atone for 
everything. No more will the lisp of a sprightly 
child, though it should be in the first instance 
irresistible. The truth of the matter was that 
these Dorseys were forever borrowing and never 
returning; hardly the day passed that they did not 
make requisition for some article of common use 
a trifle in itself yet by multiplication becoming no 
trifle while the day of repayment came not. 

Essie found herself at length in a vexing predica 
ment. She had a growing sense of being imposed 
on, and the uneasy consciousness that it was a 
guilty thing to permit so formidable a leak in the 
household expenses when she was under every ob 
ligation to be rigidly economical; yet it was not in 
her to refuse those people. Partly a misgiving 
made her hesitate a misgiving lest they should 
be in real need and therefore not rightly to be 
denied their dole, however ill she could afford it; 
but more and more it was something else some 
thing like fear, almost, though she knew not what 
she was afraid of; anyway something such that 
no matter what resolution she might take, she 
nevertheless found herself yielding as often as 

86 



A Knight in Denim 

Mildred almost invariably it was Mildred with 
her saucy eyes and lisping tongue came asking. 
She could bid herself be harsh and peremptory, 
but on trial it proved easier to endure, and so her 
predicament waxed vexing. 

Her deliverance was at hand, however. She had 
not yet begun to think of Bill as her faithful re 
tainer, but none the less he was ready booted and 
spurred, as it were. 

She scarcely knew what to think of him, for that 
matter an unparalleled simpleton, strangely en 
dowed with rare capabilities, forever confounding 
the accepted notion of what witlessness should be 
like. But at least she held him innocent, and by 
that harmless so much an instinct told her; a 
person, in other words, whom she dared be entirely 
frank and confidential with, though he wore the 
figure of that masculinity which womankind are 
bidden by yet another instinct to be on their guard 
against. In point of fact, she shortly learned to 
fear him no more than she would fear a little boy 
in his first trousers a little boy in trousers he over 
and over reminded her of. Further she perceived, 
though perhaps without identifying it precisely, 
that there lay between them a sort of sympathy, 
and thereby felt less and less of constraint with him. 
Almost from the moment when, with genial as 
sumption, he bade her sit down while he weeded 

8? 



A Knight in Denim 

out the roses, they were friends, and soon she felt 
free to talk with him as she talked with none 
other; and though by so doing she expected to de 
rive no benefit beyond the relief of speaking out, 
that relief was of itself worth while. Thus it 
came to pass that she poured the first confession 
of her predicament into Bill s ears. 

"Are the Dorseys poor?" she asked him one 
day. 

Bill put on a mysterious air. "Not t anybody 
knows of," he replied. He was silent a moment, 
in deep thought, then added, cryptically: "Sixteen 
hunderd dollars all in a bunch! Tain t everybody 
knows how to keep money when he gits it. Easy 
come, easy go. Just like findin of it, as ye might 
say. Still, money s money, as the feller said." 

Essie did not seek to trace what thought may 
have underlaid his tangle of words sufficient unto 
her was the evil she already knew of. "Well, if 
they re not poor, I do wish they would stop coming 
over here to borrow it s a real nuisance!" she 
exclaimed. 

Bill pricked up his ears at once. "Borry, eh ?" 

"Borrow! Why, there appears to be no end to 
it. I never heard of such people!" 

The tale was grown long but, being started, 
she told it she even enumerated the articles and 
quantities owing; there was the satisfaction of un- 



A Knight in Denim 

burdening her mind, at least. Bill listened atten 
tively he always listened so to her, no matter 
what she had to say. To Haldean s discourses, 
however important, he was virtually deaf, but to 
Essie s lightest word he gave instant heed. 

" I wonder if her having been trained to service 
in the old country may not have got Mrs. Dorsey 
into the way of being well, so dependent ?" spec 
ulated Essie, the telling finished. 

"Might do!" assented Bill, stroking his beard 
reflectively. 

"Somehow I have an idea that English servants 
haven t much pride about some things." 

"English, eh?" 

"Of course it would be the same with any race 
of people in the same circumstances." 

" Y gorry!" 

Essie heaved a sigh and Bill looked profoundly 
sorry, and that was all, for the present. 

The next talk they had about the Dorseys was 
in a different key the key of raillery, if you 
please. 

"Mrs. Dorsey s a real good-looking woman, 
isn t she?" remarked Essie with a twinkle in her 
eyes. 

"Well, I reckon you kin meet her in a dark night 
an not want to holler for help, anyhow," rejoined 
Bill soberly. 



A Knight in Denim 

"Of course I don t blame you. The men are all 
alike they can t keep away from a pretty face any 
more than moths can keep away from a flame!" 

Bill s beard came in for another stroking, in the 
pensive fashion of a Hebrew philosopher. "Might 
do!" he agreed with unruffled gravity. The apti 
tude for making believe is rudimentary children 
and fools and even the beasts have it. 

"But isn t Mr. Dorsey rather jealous because of 
your calling so often ? Every evening, you know! 
Dear me, it certainly would seem to be serious." 

"You don t aim to tell me!" Bill fell graver and 
more pensive than ever, if such a thing were pos 
sible. "Dorsey, eh? I reckon he prob ly knows 
you kayn t git no blood outen a turnip. Sixteen 
hunderd don t grow on ev ry bush, I say." 

This time the mention of the sixteen hundred 
didn t pass unheeded. "What a vast sum of 
money!" commented Essie, still in the playful 
mood. "What about it, anyway." 

"Near s I kin make out, sixteen hunderd s 
about sixteen hunderd," Bill made answer, sol 
emnly. 

Joking aside, however, he was paying Mrs. Dor 
sey assiduous court and with a serious purpose, the 
long and short of it being that he had set himself to 
haunt the woman, in the style of the professional 
collector of bad debts to dun her, in other words. 

90 



A Knight in Denim 

Every evening, rain or shine, with all the precision 
and regularity of clock-work, for in that connection 
precision and regularity are powerful aids, he went 
over and asked her, quietly and without circum 
locution, when she meant to pay back some certain 
article which she had borrowed. That which en 
sued was in effect a trial in patience. Nothing 
could exceed the sweetness with which Mrs. Dor- 
sey met these overtures, while as for what they 
might impute, she took no more discredit to her 
self than a duck might take of the water splashed 
on its oily back. So for a season the duel promised 
nothing better than a draw; but presently there were 
indications that Bill s resources were the greater 
though she still put him off with honeyed answers. 
Mrs. Dorsey now and again betrayed a patience 
wearing thin. After that the end was not much 
delayed. The contest ended in a colloquy which, 
though short, was sufficiently pointed to leave the 
issue no longer doubtful. 

Yet it began quite serenely and without par 
ticular intimation of what was about to develop. 

" D evenin , Mis Dorsey!" said Bill, and the 
proverbial basket of chips could not be politer. 

"And a good evening to you, Mr. Harbaugh!" 
said the woman, not to be outdone in the externals 
of courtesy. 

"Fine evenin !" 

9 1 



A Knight in Denim 

"Oh, is it not glorious!" 

"Pretty weather we re havin right along!" 

"Beautiful!" 

"I see they s a bank o* clouds in the north, 
though. Goin to fetch rain afore mornin , 
s pose ?" 

"Now what do you say, Mr. Harbaugh ? Every 
body calls you weatherwise!" 

She knew her weapons nobody could employ 
flattery to more purpose, and nobody was ordinarily 
so open to that manner of attack as Bill. But now 
he had other fish to fry, of a character to make him 
forget his customary bent; instead of grasping the 
opportunity to plume himself, he plunged abruptly 
off on a different tack. 

"Thought I d nachly drap over an* see about 
when ye aim to pay back that there coal-ile ye bor- 
ried a spell ago ?" said he in the usual form, for a 
tolerably settled form was a part of his procedure. 

"Oh, in a day or two just as soon as we get 
our can filled at the village," said Mrs. Dorsey. 
That was in the usual form too. 

But hereupon a trifle of departure was taken. 
Instead of concentrating, as it were, on a single 
article, Bill proceeded to rehearse a long list of de 
linquencies to pile Pelion on Ossa, in a manner 
of speaking; not only oil and flour, but sugar and 
starch and salt and spice, and even potatoes 

92 



A Knight in Denim 

nothing had been too cheap and common to come 
within the scope of Mrs. Dorsey s sinister enterprise. 
Possibly it w.as being dunned about a few beggarly 
potatoes that exhausted the last attenuated shred 
of her patience; anyway, the curb was instantly off 
and the mischief to pay. 

"You re nothing but a natural-born idiot!" she 
snapped in a high, harsh voice and with all the 
aspect of a fury. 

But her sudden change of front did not disturb 
Bill in the least it was precisely what he had been 
playing for. "Oh, come, now!" quoth he, affect 
ing a soothing tone. "What if ev rybody was to be 
called by their right name, slap out like that?" 

The woman was boiling and reckless. "Mrs. 
Haldean sent you she hasn t the face to come 
herself." 

"Never you mind bout Mis Haldean. Just 
talk to me kinder straight an* square like. When 
ye goin to pay them things back?" 

"None of your business! I didn t borrow them 
of you ! Tell your two-faced mistress to come over 
herself, and I ll talk to her. I ll tell her something 
she won t care to hear!" 

" F m mebbe ye wouldn t mind tellin me when 
ye aim to come over an borry some more ?" 

By that Bill touched the substance of his victory. 
There .was no possibility of the goods already bor- 

93 



A Knight in Denim 

rowed ever being repaid the best a knight might 
achieve in the premises was to save his mistress 
from being further imposed on; and that he had 
done. Mrs. Dorsey was fit to burst, she was so 
enraged, and she sent him away with the amplest 
assurance that she would borrow no more. 

And when, thereupon, Bill s Intimacy with the 
Dorseys ceased, Essie could rally him about that. 
That s the way with you men you re very de 
voted for a little, but how quickly you cool ! Poor 
Mrs. Dorsey!" 

Bill looked pained, as if the shortcomings of his 
sex were a tender point with him, whereat Essie 
laughed gayly. 

"And by the way," she said, "Mildred hasn t 
been over to borrow anything for more than a 
week!" 

C Y gorry!" said Bill, and his air of astonish 
ment was perfect. 



94 



CHAPTER VII 

A WOMAN moved to spite is by competent 
testimony a vengeful creature and fertile in 
devices of revenge, and that circumstance may 
have had its part in determining the course of 
events; but, whether or no, the fate of the Haldeans 
was to be still further entangled with that of the 
Dorseys, and in a fashion far from trivial. Indeed, 
the situation which came to pass had in it the mak 
ings of tragedy. 

Essie was altogether unaware of the storm till it 
burst upon her. Her habit had been, these quiet 
warm evenings, to take some of her work out on 
the porch, which faced the sunset, and watch from 
there the changing light in the west. It was 
one of her consolations, whereby she sought to 
temper the loneliness of her exile something to 
look forward to and to remember, and by that to 
be a help in banishing profitless regrets and yearn 
ings which could only sour her. Unaccustomed 
shadows hung pretty thickly about her way, and any 
means of fighting them off was mightily welcome. 

To-night she was enjoying a show quite prodig 
ious, shelling peas the while. The afternoon had 

95 



A Knight in Denim 

been dull and overcast, so that she debated with 
herself whether it would be worth her while to go 
out on the porch at all, deeming it certain that the 
clouds were not intending to break away. Nor did 
they, in the ordinary sense of the term; but they 
lifted somewhat, forming a curiously straight edge 
below, with the result that at the moment the sun 
touched the horizon, it was cut squarely in two, 
across from side to side, its upper half being entirely 
out of sight under the cloud, while its lower half 
revealed itself through a thin haze, glaring bale- 
fully red. The effect was that of a gigantic gas 
light where the burner is so constructed as to give 
the flame the shape of a fan. It was a striking 
and, in some sense, an uncanny spectacle, and of 
course it could last but a moment. 

Essie felt the natural impulse to share her inter 
est with somebody. Down at the foot of the slope 
her husband was hurrying along, in his character 
istic nervous manner, and near by stood Bill, with 
his hands in his pockets, surveying a patch of sweet 
corn which some unheard-of species of caterpillar 
had been ravaging. Essie had it on her lips to call 
out to them, when the bolt fell, and she thought no 
more of sunsets and celestial prodigies. 

It began with Haldean stepping up behind Bill 
and striking him. The blow was of small effect 
it landed glancingly on Bill s brawny neck; but 

96 



A Knight in Denim 

it was palpably a blow struck in anger. Essie saw 
it, and the lips which she had opened to testify 
to her admiration and wonder, uttered instead a 
scream of terror and dismay. 

She did not stop with screaming, however, but 
sprang to her feet, so hastily as to upset her pan and 
scatter the peas in every direction, and ran down 
the hill as fast as she could. Bill had faced about, 
though without taking his hands out of his pockets, 
and Haldean had his arm uplifted to strike again, 
when she pushed in between them and arrested the 
blow. 

" Tudor! how can you! * she cried breathlessly. 

Haldean was white with passion and gave her 
a terrible look. :&lt; That s right save your spy!" 
he hissed. 

Essie was well nigh dumfounded. "I don t 
know what you mean I don t know why you be 
have so!" she faltered, trembling visibly. 

Of course Bill might better have kept still, but 
equally of course that wasn t his way, particularly 
where he beheld his mistress so plainly in distress. 
That s all right, Essie he kayn t hurt me no 
how!" he put in, making light of the blow. 

Naturally, the effect was not pacifying Hal- 
dean fairly swelled with fury. "Essie, forsooth!" 
he mocked, and laughed harshly. "Madame, 
you ve no right to be jealous, if I m not!" 

97 



A Knight in Denim 

"Tudor! Pray be reasonable. Who is jealous, 
or has any reason to be jealous ?" 

" You or you wouldn t have set this cur to spy 
on me!" 

Essie clutched her hands tightly together. " Oh, 
what new trial is this as if there were not enough 
before! Tudor, are you mad?" 

At any rate he was foaming. " I ought to shoot 
him, only that would be treating him too honor 
ably too much like a gentleman when he is no 
better than a dog. What he should have is a sound 
thrashing he should be thrashed within an inch 
of his life; but I see you are determined to save 
him from that. Of course that is a part of your 
bargain with him." 

He had raised his voice to a boisterous pitch, 
and she besought him to speak lower. "Do you 
want everybody to hear you going on so ?" 

"It doesn t matter who hears me. I, at least, 
have nothing to conceal. But I won t be spied on 
mind you that!" 

" Surely I ve no wish to spy on you. Why should 
I?" 

"God only knows! A jealous woman never has 
a reason." 

Essie bit her lip her own temper was beginning 
to stir. "I can be patient, Tudor, as you ought 
to know, but I cannot stand everything. I warn 



A Knight in Denim 

you to be careful lest it be the worse for both of 
us!" 

Once more it was not in Bill s nature to avoid 
doing the maladroit thing. "That s right, Essie 
stand up to him! That s what ll bring him to 
time, I reckon," he bawled. 

For the first time the loyal knight was given, 
hereupon, to feel his mistress s displeasure he had 
taken a liberty beyond indulgence. "Be still, Bill!" 
she commanded sharply. " You should have more 
respect." 

"Please don t, Bill!" sneered Haldean scorn 
fully. "Dear Bill! Good, sweet Bill! Please 
don t!" 

His irony was as insulting as possible, and the 
woman flushed under it. Tudor, I insist on 
knowing what this means. I am wholly in the 
dark; I- 

Haldean broke in upon her with a loud, forced 
guffaw. Tell that to the marines!" he taunted 
coarsely. 

It was too much. Essie s eyes flashed and she 
drew herself up indignantly. " I shall not endure 
to have my word doubted, even by my husband! 
I repeat, I am wholly in the dark as to what you 
mean by your conduct!" she said intensely. 

There was a warning note in her manner so dis 
tinct that Haldean fell sullenly silent in so far he 

99 



A Knight in Denim 

was cooled. When she demanded once more that 
he explain himself, he vouchsafed no answer of any 
sort not even to sneer. 

She turned to Bill. "What is it?" she asked. 
"Do you know what has happened ?" 

Bill never looked more the simpleton; he gave 
her back a grin which was to the last degree vacu 
ous and foolish. "How should I know, as the fel 
ler said ?" he rejoined. 

"Why did my husband strike you a moment 
ago?" 

"F m you tell! I was wonderin* bout that 
myself. What you s pose he up an hit me that 
way for poor old man like me! He ll be old his- 
self sometime, an then he ll see how tis." In his 
kindlier way the simpleton was mocking her too 
putting her off with clumsy evasions. 

"Don t deceive me, Bill. What did he strike 
you for ?" 

"Y gorry, I guess hit muster been f r instance! 
That s what twas f r instance! Y gorry, yes!" 

As if on purpose to make his silly speech still 
sillier, he topped it off, so to say, with his empty 
cackling laugh. It was enough to annoy any 
one even a casual by-stander. Haldean it sent 
into a fit of fury beyond anything yet. He was 
made so furious, indeed, that he forgot his discre 
tion entirely. 

100 



A Knight in Denim 

"You contemptible puppy!" he stormed. "You 
followed me over to to that is " 

The master s discretion came back to him, but 
not quite soon enough. He tried to cover his 
confusion with a cough, but it was too palpable. 
Very evidently he found himself, thanks to the 
blindness of his anger, on the brink of an awkward 
confession even the simpleton could see, and be 
prompted to rude raillery. 

"Spit it out, cap spit it out!" chuckled Bill. 

"When I went to call on my neighbors!" Hal- 
dean finished his sentence with a poor assumption 
of injured innocence. 

"Did you follow him, Bill?" Essie inquired 
severely. 

"Cap says so. Ever know cap to tell what 
wa n t so ?" 

"Bill!" 

"Mum!" 

"This is no joking matter! Tell me what 
possessed you to follow Mr. Haldean ? Don t you 
know it is wrong to do that ?" 

Bill plucked a long spear of timothy and picked 
his teeth with it meditatively. "You kayn t most 
always sometimes tell," he observed, and once 
more topped off with the silly cackle. 

Haldean s exasperation, freshly moved, plunged 
him into another indiscretion. "It s none of your 

101 



A Knight in Denim 

business where I go!" he flared out at his wife. 
"I m not tied to your apron-strings, I hope. I 
won t have my conduct examined into by you!" 
"Am I examining into your conduct ?" 
"What else? You pursue this blithering idiot 
with your impertinent questions. You make him 
a witness against me. You ask him why he fol 
lowed me, and press him for an answer. I m not 
responsible for his idiotic suspicions." 

A sudden light dawned in the woman s face, and 
almost instantly gave way to a peculiar shadow of 
disgust. She stood a moment undecided. But if 

O 

it was in her mind to end the incident thereupon, 
she reckoned without Bill. 

"I ll tell ye, Essie ! " he broke out, hurling the spear 
of timothy to the ground with exaggerated energy. 
"It s on count of cap here not bein Tracy!" 

And who, in all conscience, was Tracy ? She 
didn t speak, but her aspect asked the question. 

"Tracy he s richer n all out-doors. Some say 
he s richer n any man in these parts. Course he 
could pay Dorsey that there sixteen hunderd an 
not miss it to hurt. How long you s pose twould 
take Tracy to git him another sixteen hunderd ? 
All he s got to do is to go out an steal what he 
wants from the Injuns, an he s just as well off as 
ever he was. Tracy he could spare sixteen hun 
derd, but cap here he can t. That s what I look 

102 



A Knight in Denim 

at. How d it be if cap was to have to put up six 
teen hunderd to keep Dorsey from spaltin out an 
makin trouble ? I tell ye, cap, if I was you I 
wouldn t have nothin to do with that there woman, 
y gorry! She s plum too smart for the likes of 
you. Tracy thought he was foxy, an I don t 
doubt mebbe he was. He was used to beatin 
most ev rybody he had dealin s with, but when it 
come to the woman, he got beat, an it cost him 
sixteen hunderd to git out of the mess. Dorsey I 
don t doubt s got it bout spent by now, an so Mis 
Dorsey she ll nachly be lookin round for some 
body else she kin wind on her finger." 

The shadow of disgust deepened in Essie s face 
as she listened, and before Bill could finish his dis 
course, which was unprecedentedly long, she turned 
on her heel and walked swiftly away. Haldean, 
left thus to take such measures as suited his pleas 
ure, was wellnigh impotent with passion. It was 
not till after a considerable interval, during which 
he swelled and puffed and clenched his fists in the 
excess of his wrath, that he commanded himself 
sufficiently to do something definite. 

"Leave my premises this instant, and never dare 
to set foot on them again!" he roared, and bristled 
terrifically. 

Bill gazed imperturbably out over the patch of 
corn. That bristling front was wholly lost on him. 

103 



A Knight in Denim 

"Cap," quoth he, "what be I a-goin to do with 
them there caterpillars that s eatin* of that there 
sweet corn, hey ? I never did see nothin go into 
a piece of sweet corn the way them there critters 
is a-goin in. Right down inside of the husks so. 
Ever you see caterpillars dig right down inside the 
husks that way?" 

Haldean, seething, strode a step or two nearer 
beyond a doubt his intentions were of the most seri 
ous character; but that figure of unruffled calm 
bulked gigantic in the deepening twilight, its very 
serenity rendered it doubly formidable, and though 
violence was in the master s heart, his hand did 
none. 

Half an hour later the Haldeans, man and wife, 
were variously occupied about the evening lamp, 
not without discernible constraint upon them, but 
on the whole much as usual, when Bill came in, 
yawning prodigiously, as his fashion was at the 
close of day, to go to bed. 

"Night, Essie!" he called out cheerfully. 

"Good night, Bill!" she answered, glancing up 
with a bright smile. 

"Night, cap!" 

No response. But that was nothing especially 
out of the ordinary. Haldean often made it a 
point to snub Bill s familiar advances, by way of 
teaching him his place. 

104 



A Knight in Denim 

The affair, however, held still further oppor 
tunities for knightly offices to take advantage of. 
Shortly, within a day or two, Bill presented himself 
at the threshold of the Dorsey home. Of course 
not even a simpleton could be so dense as to fancy 
that he would be welcome clearly it was the 
fulfilment of no merely social obligation which 
brought him there. He wasn t bidden to enter, 
but the door stood open, and he went in without 
ceremony. 

"Evenin , Mis Dorsey!" he greeted, seating 
himself comfortably. 

The woman bent a withering gaze upon him. 
"I wonder have fools always such nerve!" she 
exclaimed with tremendous irony. 

The thrust fell short, or, if it made a wound, Bill 
bore up with the fortitude of a stoic. "How s all 
your folks ?" he asked benignly. 

The woman was in her kitchen, surrounded by 
pots and pans, and she addressed herself to these 
without a word of reply. 

" I hear old man Tracy s laid up with neuraligy. 
Tracy, ye know he lives up Two Forks way, but 
most ev rybody round here knows him. Used to 
see him down this way often, a spell back. Hain t 
see him so much lately; I don t doubt it s count of 
his bein troubled with neuraligy so. Gittin long 
in years, Tracy is, but he s peart right peart, 

105 



A Knight in Denim 

some ways. Right peart old man, Tracy is, I say. 
An rich! They claim he kin go right down in his 
jeans an* fork over sixteen hunderd dollars an 
never feel it. Y gorry, I wonder if that s so, 
hey?" 

Mrs. Dorsey faced about flamingly. "If you ve 
anything to say to me, say it, and go your miserable 
way! The sight of you is not pleasant, I assure 
you." 

"Mebbe you re right. Hadn t thought bout it, 
but now you mention it, I reckon I hain t so all- 
killin pooty to look at as some. Reckon I hain t 
much likely to be hung for my beauty, as the feller 
said." 

"Hung! You would never get so much as a jail 
sentence!" retorted Mrs. Dorsey. 

Bill laughed and threw one leg carelessly over the 
other, all with the air of being well entertained. 
"Course I s pose you know there hain t no gittin 
blood outen a turnip?" 

"I dare say you ll be speaking of that head of 
yours!" 

"Well, not speshly. There s that, an there s 
more. I was thinkin most likely you didn t know, 
an so I d nachly drop over, neighborly like, an 
tell ye bout Cap Haldean. Cap he s poorer n 
Poo Dick! Hain t no sixteen hunderd in his 
jeans." 

1 06 



A Knight in Denim 

Mrs. Dorsey s fine eyes shot fire. "You insult 
ing fellow! I shall tell my husband, and he ll 
knock your teeth down your throat, that s what 
he ll do!" 

"Dorsey ? Oh, not Dorsey, now! Dorsey he ll 
thank me. I don t s pose Dorsey ll be much 
pleased to have ye pesterin with somebody that s 
poorer n Poo Dick, hey?" 

That woman sent you to insult me!" 

"What woman?" 

"Mrs. Haldean, the proud, deceitful hussy!" 

"Well, I don t know s I see that it makes much 
matter who sent me, or whether I come on my 
own hook, unbeknownst. That hain t the p int. 
P int is there hain t nobody ever got no blood 
outen ary turnip, yit, an I don t s pose there 
hain t never nobody a-goin to. Think it over!" 

After that the two families were reputed ene 
mies. The Dorsey children committed small de 
predations, and once, when Bill cuffed a brother 
of Mildred s whom he caught in mischief, Mrs. 
Dorsey flew out like a broody hen, and Dorsey 
blustered, and there promised to be an out-and- 
out feud, if only the Haldeans should consent to 
hold up their end and give back a tooth for a tooth. 
But they did not, and before another year the Dor- 
seys, who were only renters anyway, saw fit to 
remove themselves from the Valley. 

107 



CHAPTER VIII 

BUT be the sunsets however glorious, it was a 
dull life for a woman like Essie. 
After the fashion of the wise man in the prov 
erb who foresaw the evil and provided himself, 
she reached out eagerly for every new interest that 
offered. There lay a world of wonder and diver 
sion in the fields and forests all about her, and it 
was her first fond notion that she could never ex 
haust resources so lavish she need never be dull 
or lonesome. But the key to that world somehow 
eluded her. Her acquaintance with natural his 
tory had been gained in a distant region where 
plants and animals were of other varieties, and the 
scant remnants of her knowledge served but poorly 
to put her in touch with these present forms; but 
that was not the most serious obstacle she had to 
encounter. In point of fact, as to her very con 
siderable chagrin she soon discovered, her mind 
was not of the scientific cast at all, to the end that, 
try as she might, she could not lose herself in the 
study of nature. She loved nature, intensely, but 
in the manner of a child, or a poet, deriving broad 
impressions which, while they lasted, were delicious 

1 08 



A Knight in Denim 

and absorbing; but as for that minute pursuit of 
analytical details whereby she should forget her 
desolation, that proved to be beyond her. 

Essie was a cultivated woman, but she saw her 
culture in a new light under the demand now put 
upon it, and she blamed it heartily. It had made 
her fastidious, so that she could not possibly fill 
her life as the people of the Valley filled theirs, yet 
it offered, in these circumstances, no substantial 
consolation instead. How should it, for that 
matter ? How were the schools to which wealthy 
families were accustomed to send their daughters 
to take it upon themselves to prepare those dainty 
creatures for such a vicissitude of fortune; to fit 
them, in other words, to lodge in a wilderness, 
among neighbors who were hardly more in kind 
than painted savages might be to be married, if 
you speak of that, to a man destined to the sorri 
est mishaps, and in whom mishap could breed no 
nobler sentiment than pity for himself? After all, 
the schools had done what they were paid for do 
ing, and anyway it were useless, though not un 
just, to blame them. 

These Haldeans were poor, after that first out 
burst of prodigality poorer even than the onlook- 
ing world supposed; but poverty of itself, though 
a thing hitherto unknown, was not the cross which 
bore upon the woman so heavily. Under almost 

109 



A Knight in Denim 

any other conditions, she assured herself, she might 
have been poor, yet very tolerably happy, and that 
such conditions had not been vouchsafed her was 
the part she took hard. Eagerly and in good faith, 
as the sense of her need grew upon her, she reached 
out for the wherewithal to fill her life and make it 
somehow better than a living death, and when it 
failed her, the courage which a high spirit had 
given her to begin with, was damped like fire un 
der a dash of water. She was shortly aware of a 
current which drew her nearer and nearer to the 
slough of despond. The sunsets, her roses, birds 
nesting where she could watch them and form per 
sonal acquaintances with them though she could 
delight in these, they were not enough. Her soul 
yearned for more for something more sponta 
neously delightful, something which carried with 
it less of the drawback of conscious effect; and 
her yearning, since she was brought to consider 
whether it was not doomed to be forever denied, 
terrified her. 

An empty life who should endure it ? If hers 
was incurably so, how should she face the future ? 
Were she not better dead ? Should she not go mad 
at length ? 

But these gloomy reflections marked the pitch 
of darkness which is the harbinger of dawn. There 
was a dawn at hand for Essie, and of a character 

no 



A Knight in Denim 

not contemptible, in view of the dread shadows it 
served to dispel in a brighter day she would have 
accounted it nothing of the sort, but not now. She 
was getting to know herself, by virtue of her trials 
subjecting herself to a search such as no trait 
could well escape; and so it was that she found out 
what a taste she had for literature, a taste hitherto 
blunted by surfeit and therefore not suspected, 
but hereupon developed into a sharp-set hunger. 
It was no straining of the figure to call it the dawn 
ing of day when first she felt within her a passion 
such as promised interest without end the pas 
sion for reading. 

There was still, though, the difficulty of provid 
ing the feast. Whereas a scientific taste might find 
its gratification very cheaply without expense, 
in fact a taste for literature demanded the out 
lay of money, and there was no money to be had. 
They had brought not so much as a single book 
with them into the wilderness she recalled with a 
pang how that of all the appurtenances of their 
former magnificence she had seen the stately library 
depart with least regret. There were Elzivirs and 
Caxtons in that library, but likewise there were 
volumes in poor binding yet of precious content, 
and it was of these she thought with longing, per 
suaded that if she only might have a dozen such, 
or even fewer, she would ask no more of fortune. 

in 



A Knight in Denim 

They might have been held out without in the least 
affecting the value of the collection at auction 
why had she not chosen to save so much from the 
wreck ? It was the sorry lack of foresight, the 
sorrier failure to know herself. 

Haldean had still his newspaper it was about 
all he ever read, even in the days of his prosperity, 
and he would have it, whatever the cost, if only in 
consideration of the dignity proper to the master 
of Throstlewood, who owed it to his position to keep 
posted as to affairs. That was the only reading 
in the house, and for Essie s regalement it furnished 
forth nothing but husks politics and markets and 
sports and crimes, all crude and common, ex 
hibiting nowhere the play of the superior mind 
whence literature derives its character. There was 
the inevitable women s page, to be sure, but it was 
less profitable than the others mere twaddle, 
in fact; better politics and crimes than the wo 
men s page. 

It was through the paper, however, that her help 
came; reading it as a dreadfully hungry man 
might eat husks, because even the poorest food 
was better than none, she happened upon the ad 
vertisement of another paper. 

That other paper was called the Home Journal, 
and the title was not especially suggestive of possi 
bilities it might be all about cookery, or fancy 

112 



A Knight in Denim 

sewing, or society, for aught the title indicated to 
the contrary. But it had been founded and in his 
lifetime conducted by N. P. Willis. Now Essie 
had heard of N. P. Willis he was a conspicuous 
figure in literature, a poet whose poetry she could 
remember having read, and a critic whom her 
teachers had spoken of with high respect. How 
was it not likely that a paper founded and con 
ducted by him should contain the things she should 
enjoy reading ? The advertisement went on to say 
that the Home Journal prided itself particularly 
on its reviews of books it laid claim to review 
ing important books in an important manner, and 
certainly that augured encouragingly. Finally, it 
would be sent, to any new subscriber, during two 
months, for twenty-five cents. The price of a 
year s subscription was two dollars, but by way of 
inducing people to investigate the merits of the 
publication it would be sent during two months for 
twenty-five cents. 

Twenty-five cents was not more than Essie could 
still muster, and she posted it off to New York; 
and the fever of impatience with which she sat 
down to wait showed how hungry she was. 

Looked at in any ordinary light it was a small 
affair when the first copy came to hand, but here 
was light which made it a truly great affair. Never, 
perhaps, in all the history of the world, was there a 



A Knight in Denim 

wrapper torn off more eagerly, or a paper scanned 
more narrowly, to see what it was like. It stood 
the inspection well. The very heading, in a pe 
culiar style of letter formed by thin double outlines, 
had a promising dignity about it, and the first 
cursory glance over the pages, so solidly filled, so 
devoid of froth, was enough to affect Essie most 
agreeably. Of a truth it looked to be a feast 
spread before her, and so it proved. 

She read every word, and every word tasted good 
to her. And soon she discovered a new need- 
nobody likes to eat alone at a table of that kind. 
The food wherewith she so fed her mind being 
digested, there at once sprang up within her a mul 
titude of ideas, all clamoring for expression. She 
wanted somebody to talk to, and the want so grew 
upon her that she was fain at length to take her 
husband into these precious confidences. She had 
no right to suppose that he would have the least 
sympathy with her delight, but none the less she 
had to speak out. 

An instinct of prudence prompted her to some 
what of strategy she began by directing Hal- 
dean s attention to an article which she fancied 
might touch him especially, since it had a po 
litical color. But when he had run his eye 
coldly over a few lines, he threw the paper down 
disdainfully. 

114 



A Knight in Denim 

; That s a blue-stocking sheet!" he sneered. 

"I rather like it, though," she rejoined hurt, 
but determined not to take offense. 

" Nonsense! Nobody likes that sort of stuff. 
Prigs pretend to like it, just for effect." 

The experiment was a failure, just as she might 
have foreseen it would be. She was sorry for hav 
ing made the trial, but she would conceal her 
chagrin in the interests of peace. "Tastes differ, 
I suppose," she remarked, lightly, thinking by that 
to end the unpleasant colloquy. 

He was willing still further to wound her, how 
ever, and gratuitously. "What s the use of put 
ting on such airs out here in the backwoods ?" he 
snarled, with a hateful laugh. 

After such a rebuff, though her ideas multiplied 
till they burst her literally, she would broach them 
no more to her husband. And who else had she ? 
Only Bill. A dog, perhaps, were more intelligent 
touching these high affairs, but her exile afforded 
her not so much as a dog only the simpleton. 

Bill had his hour of leisure when, tired out with 
the toil of the day, he sat in the kitchen after sup 
per, and yawned noisily till he could keep awake 
no longer, whereupon he stumbled off to bed. It 
was then, no doubt, that his poor mind sunk to its 
lowest level, and Essie, opening the Home Journal 
for her evening s feast, marvelled at the impulse 

"5 



A Knight in Denim 

which set her on to make him the companion of her 
intellectual walks. Possibly its very fantasticality 
gave it added power over her at all events she 
yielded to it. 

" Bill," said she, "how would you like me to read 
a story to you ?" 

That was the last of Bill s yawning. On the 
instant his stupor fell away from him and he was 
all animation. : Y gorry, I d sure like that!" he 
replied. 

"Here s a story in my paper," Essie went on, 
"about the earliest man a man who lived before 
Adam, you know." 

Undeniably and all too clearly he did not know 
she had drawn him out beyond his depth the very 
first thing. Here was the proof, if any were needed, 
that there could be no valid communion in ideas 
between her mind, so bright and alert, and his, so 
dull and darkened. But by such a desire was she 
possessed that she could beguile herself; she was 
like a child playing that an illusion is not an illu 
sion, so to gain the benefit, in some sort, of the 
reality. As for Bill, he was acting a part, too, but 
he acted it well and faithfully now, as ever, he 
was the true knight, instinct with knightly feeling 
and stopping at no sacrifice. He knew it some 
how gratified her to believe he understood, and 
that was enough for him to know; no art whereby 

116 



A Knight in Denim 

he might bolster the belief did he neglect. He 
was the best of listeners, in form, holding himself 
rigidly in the attitude of attention and with a truly 
fine simulation thereof, sparing no pains if so be 
by these he should the better carry off his amiable 
deceit. 

The story was rather heavily didactic, being 
designed to unfold some new theory of human 
origins, yet it was not entirely without dramatic 
appeal. There was a cave man in it, and a cave 
woman, and they had an immense brood of 
cave children, while all about them dwelt cave 
neighbors, so that there was opportunity for a con 
siderable play of passion of one kind and another. 
And there were fearsome beasts, too, with which 
the cave people were constantly at war; and a thrill 
ing incident was where the particular cave man 
of the tale had a tremendous fight with a bear, or 
something in the nature of a bear, and slew it with 
no weapon but a rough stone. The point was that 
the man knew enough to pick up the stone, so to 
augment his native prowess, whereas the bear did 
not it was a demonstration, in short, of the essen 
tial superiority of the humankind over the rest of 
creation. 

The point no doubt escaped Bill, but he fairly 
held his breath over the incident. "A bar!" he 
cried, when the narrative was finished. 

117 



A Knight in Denim 

"An animal like a bear, only much larger and 
more ferocious," Essie explained. 

"With nothin , only a stun!" 

"A stone was all he had. The bear was a good 
deal stronger, but the stone gave the man the ad 
vantage." 

That feller must been tol ble strong, though!" 

"Oh, very you see, he ate nothing but raw 
meat." 

"Raw?" 

" Raw nobody knew how to start a fire in those 
days." 

Y gorry. Still, I dunno s I d just love to eat 
meat an nothin only meat. I m what ye might 
call consid ble of a bread an butter boy myself." 

There was delicacy here, when you knew the 
circumstances. The Haldean board had grown 
very lean of late scarcely ever any meat appeared 
upon it except for the master s plate; and it was 
for that Bill depreciated the cave man s diet. 

Henceforth, as often as the evening came, he 
would ask her to read to him, and he let himself be 
staggered by nothing. To share her pleasure with 
even so uncouth a communicant at the shrine of 
letters meant so much to Essie that she was at 
length reading pretty much the whole paper aloud, 
and Bill on his part listened as intently to the dry 
reviews as he had listened to the story. Once 

118 



A Knight in Denim 

there was an article more than a column long about 
a new translation of Sainte-Beuve, the Frenchman, 
and it was very dry indeed. 

"I believe I should like to read that book," com 
mented Essie, when she was come to the end of the 
review. 

"Y gorry, so d I!" rejoined Bill, with the utmost 
cordiality. 

He knew the day of the week when the Home 
Journal was due to arrive, and kept a sharp look 
out for it. "Well, Essie, what s into your paper 
this time ?" he never failed to inquire. 

Such the feast, and such the partakers of it. 
And before the two months were up, a way was 
found to go on with it. 

The estate comprised an extent of rocky pasture, 
scattered over with red-oaks, some of them quite 
large and imposing. Haldean had a fancy that 
these trees were like the English oaks, and about 
the first orders he gave out directed that the pas 
ture be parked. However, the parking process 
went no further than the clearing out of the under 
brush, for at that the oaks, the roots being thus de 
prived of the protection they were used to, straight 
way died. Haldean characteristically flew into a 
rage over the matter, and sold the timber for a 
song to parties who came on and cut it up into fire 
wood, leaving the stumps in the ground to rot at 

119 



A Knight in Denim 

their leisure. These rotting stumps, probably by 
the enrichment of the ground which they brought 
about, had the singular effect of causing a great 
multitude of raspberry brambles to spring up 
where nothing of the sort had ever grown before, 
and to flourish in rare luxuriance and fruitfulness. 
Essie found the berries and picked some of them 
for the table. They were delicious, especially the 
red variety even Haldean had to admit that he 
had never tasted fruit more to his liking. She 
picked more and, bethinking herself how easy the 
picking was and how fine the berries were, she hit 
upon a plan. She kept the table supplied though 
her husband devoured the new delicacy in great 
quantities, she looked well to it that he had all he 
wished and furthermore she was able to accu 
mulate a matter of five quarts of the choicest fruit 
over and above what could be used at home. 
These she packed daintily in fresh green leaves, 
and when his work for the day was done, her faith 
ful knight once more made proof of his devotion by 
taking them to market for her to Atro City, a 
pretty evening s tramp distant. It was altogether 
uncertain what they would fetch perhaps noth 
ing, since no doubt raspberries were common; but 
when Bill came back he had a bright half-dollar 
piece to hand over to his mistress. He had brought 
it all the way clutched tight in his fist, and he was 

120 



A Knight in Denim 

so inordinately proud of his achievement that he 
never thought of being tired. 

"Y gorry, they want all they kin git!" he re 
ported, and never a courier brought welcomer 
tidings. In a few days more the money to pay for 
a year s subscription was in hand. 

It was to practise duplicity no question about 
that; but Essie could justify it, before her con 
science. Possibly her situation had affected her 
conscience likewise, to render it easier to be ap 
peased but whether or no she saw fit not to let her 
husband know what she was about. She had not 
the heart to ask him to take the berries to market 
for her, for she was thoroughly well persuaded that 
even if his aversion to huckstering should suffer 
him to undertake the commission at all, the pro 
ceeds would never come back to her. He would 
appropriate the bit of money to his own uses, nor 
ever think wrong of it, so far did a native selfish 
ness fortified by British tradition lead him to take 
a wife s subjection as a matter of course. In short, 
she conceived that she had either to practise du 
plicity or do without the paper which had become 
the great consolation of her life, and she chose 
what seemed the lesser evil. 

Haldean s disdainful indifference to every-day 
affairs favored the deception, too, and was in itself 
a temptation. He was very particular never to 

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A Knight in Denirri 

show any concern with what Bill did, apart from 
the servile work about the farm. Bill might go to 
Atro City of an evening as often as he liked, and 
the master of Throstlewood would not deign to 
trouble himself about it. 



122 



CHAPTER IX 

HALDEAN was moreover occupied, in these 
days, with affairs peculiarly his own. He, 
too, had formed designs for eking out a scanty rev 
enue, and his projects were of a lofty character. 
He proposed, in short, to mend his fortunes with 
the earnings of his pen. 

He was prompted to the enterprise in the first 
instance by the discovery of what he conceived to 
be uncommonly fit material nothing less than the 
legend of an Indian maiden who for love had cast 
herself down from a high cliff into the swift river 
below, so to perish in the highest style of genuine 
romance. The cliff was still called Maiden Rock, 
and its story, vaguely surviving in tradition, filled 
the master with the notion to write. In order to 
perfect his color he journeyed out, at no small ex 
pense, to the reservation of the Brule Sioux, and 
came back in a fine frenzy. 

"I ve half a mind to do it in poetry!" he de 
clared. 

But he stuck to prose, and after infinite fretting 
the work was done. 

To be sure I ve taken liberties with the legend," 
I2 3 



A Knight in Denim 

he admitted, "but that is permissible in romance. 
I am a romantic. I shall be so classed by the 
critics." 

He sent the manuscript off to a famous periodical 
and counted on being paid at least a thousand dol 
lars. He even planned what he should do with the 
money. Part of it he would use to build an arbor 
to which he might retire when the fever of com 
position was upon him in the midst of the arbor 
there should be a fountain, because the tinkling of 
a fountain assisted the imagination in its flights. 
And after all the manuscript came promptly back, 
declined. It was a crushing humiliation, so much 
so that the master thought no more of literature. 

Hitherto the slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune, though they were neither few nor slight, 
and though by his selfish broodings he much mag 
nified them, had not been enough to divest Hal- 
dean of a kind of dignity, in virtue of which he 
deemed almost every one his inferior. Until now 
the neighbors had known him chiefly for his aloof 
ness. He had let it appear that he disdained them 
in pretty much everything they did. But particu 
larly scornful was he of their humble joys their 
play. 

They were a playful lot, too, relaxing until re 
laxation would seem almost their chief business 
in life. Nearly always, somewhere in the Valley, 

124 



A Knight in Denim 

there was a frolic up. And everybody, no matter 
who he was or whence he came, whether stranger 
or familiar, was welcome to play with them so 
truly welcome that invitations were as unnecessary 
as they were unknown. None stayed away be 
cause he was not bidden. Whosoever got wind of 
something doing, and wind was never hard to get, 
provided only he cared to go, went, even though, 
as not seldom happened, he should not be on speak 
ing terms with the host. The Haldeans would not 
have been denied the common freedom for all 
that they were regarded from the first as aliens 
and were at length generally and cordially disliked, 
they might have participated in the Valley s frolics 
without meeting the cold shoulder or anything re 
motely resembling it. The master was well aware 
of the law and the usage, and he only scorned the 
neighbors the more. They offended, by their very 
hospitality, his nice sense of propriety. He had 
been heard to describe their joys as not only stupid, 
but loose and licentious. 

But hereupon, under the sting of a defeat which, 
though essentially trifling in comparison with 
others he had suffered, was peculiarly bitter and 
humiliating, he became a changed man. His ex 
altation was turned to reckless abandon. He threw 
his dignity to the winds, and upon being informed, 
by the common medium of hearsay, of a dance to 

125 



A Knight in Denim 

take place at Neighbor Jentsch s, he announced to 
his astonished wife that they should attend and 
bear a part in the festivities. 

Essie was acquainted with the law and the usage, 
too, but straightway misgivings so rose upon her 
that she was fain to make a difficulty. " Did you 
are we invited ?" she asked. 

"Nobody is invited every one who chooses is 
expected to come. That s the charm of it all no 
confounded stiltedness." 

"But, Tudor, I don t suppose 

"Come, come!" he interrupted, brusquely. 
"You say yourself that if we are to live among these 
people, we ought to try to be of them. When you 
are in Rome, do as Romans do that is very good 
advice." 

She could not deny her own sentiments, though 
it was long since she had ventured to urge them. 
They were her sentiments still; it was not because 
she wished to shun the neighbors that she hesitated. 
What gave the situation its doubtful aspect was 
the ominous transformation which had come over 
her husband. A strange excitement lay upon 
him. The restraints which, however little they 
might be due to real moral fiber, had at least given 
his character a degree of stability, were visibly 
broken down, and she saw him the ready prey of 
whim. She was really alarmed, and the more she 

126 



A Knight in Denim 

thought about the dance the less she relished the 
idea of going. Yet all the while it was harder and 
harder to do otherwise to take the contrary stand. 
To be sure the expedition, for all it looked so un 
promising in advance, might nevertheless be the be 
ginning of the better order of living, the seemlier 
dispensation which she had longed for. Certainly 
their isolation, in so far as it was of their own choice, 
was very wrong, and there was the chance that 
Haldean, in his abandon, had hit upon the right 
way of correcting it. In the end Essie could not 
set up her misgivings against what might prove to 
be a providential intervention. 

Jentsch s was a very favorite centre of neighbor 
hood conviviality, as it happened. The host, a 
broad Bohemian of the jovial type, seeing very 
small good in life beyond the gratifications of the 
material man, spared no pains in the entertain 
ment of his guests, and his wife, not less broad and 
jovial, was his loyal and tireless helpmeet in what 
soever enterprise had good cheer for its aim. The 
Haldeans could not have chosen a place likelier to 
exhibit the social atmosphere of the Valley, where 
by there came to pass much that was wholesome, 
though crude, and much likewise, perhaps more, 
that was degrading. Almost the first object their 
eyes fell on as they entered there was a barrel of 
beer duly broached and already yielding its liquor 

127 



A Knight in Denim 

freely to all who drew near. Nobody held off. 
Though the evening was young and the fun scarcely 
under way as yet, the signs of intoxication were 
plentifully apparent, and not a breath in the house, 
probably, was failing to contribute its share toward 
the heavy stale reek which was a striking feature 
of the occasion. The party, in short, were pro 
ceeding blithely and expeditiously to get drunk, and 
therein lay the head and front of their offending. 
So long as they remained reasonably sober, there 
was no danger of these people doing anything very 
bad, but being drunken, there was hardly any in 
iquity impossible. The possibilities of mischief 
bound up in that barrel of beer were not to be 
easily gauged. 

Dancing had been in progress from an early 
hour, and considering how very small the house 
was and how many were the guests, it was some 
thing of a performance. However, it was not like 
any other dancing you ever saw; the exigencies of 
environment had done their work, and the original 
figures were become a curious miscellany of chaotic 
caperings, unregardful of grace and the strict pro 
prieties, but very hearty and always affording the 
utmost of action in the least of space. If there was 
endless bumping, that was part of the fun, and the 
intimacy served to banish every vestige of con 
straint, that haunting presence which is so apt to 

128 



A Knight in Denim 

spoil things. Provided people were not too drunk, 
the kind of dancing made necessary by the condi 
tions at Jentsch s wasn t so bad. The music could 
not well be wretcheder the screeching of a vile 
fiddle vilely played; but somehow a fair quality of 
time was kept, and the dance being once under 
way, it would stop for no trifle. 

Of course there was a sensation when the Hal- 
deans put in their appearance. It was a veritable 
prodigy come to pass, and the company here as 
sembled was not given to suppressing its natural 
sentiments in favor of its manners. The word flew 
audibly, everybody turned to stare, and the joyful 
din was significantly hushed. Only the fiddler 
kept on as if nothing had happened. 

For Essie the position was very difficult she 
knew not what to do, in fact; but Haldean took 
his part better. By a lucky guess most of these 
people were unknown to him, so apart had he kept 
himself hitherto be picked out the hostess, and 
proceeded to pay his duty to her with airy ease. 

"Good evening, Mrs. Jentsch," he said. "I 
am Mr. Haldean, and this is Mrs. Haldean. May 
we dance with you ?" 

He did the thing winsomely, and to the evident 
admiration of the onlookers. Mrs. Jentsch was 
quite won, and glowed in friendly fashion, but 
likewise was she fluttered by being confronted with 

129 



A Knight in Denim 

an emergency which seemed to demand unaccus 
tomed formalities of her. She put out her hand in 
a dazed way, and smiled a vacant smile, and be 
yond that waited helplessly, without speech. It 
remained for Jentsch to come to the rescue, roar 
ing a big-voiced welcome, and backing it up with 
the universal solvent of all problems as they pre 
sented themselves to him two foaming mugs of 
beer, which he held aloft in either hand, like the 
serving man out of some old picture. 

Everybody s eyes were on them, and Essie could 
not help but understand that if she were to decline 
the proffered glass, she should thereby offer an 
affront to the spirit of the occasion. Moreover, 
she caught a swift look from her husband which 
conveyed no doubtful meaning he was warning 
her that nothing could be more untimely and out 
of place than squeamishness. She was utterly in 
capable of swallowing the liquor the mere smell 
of the stuff turned her sick; but she might pretend. 
And it was so she got out of the predicament 
rather easily after all. Haldean drained his mug 
with a great show of spirit, vowed he had never 
tasted anything better, and altogether so distin 
guished himself as to divert attention from her. 
She raised the glass to her lips and held it there 
for a little, but without taking a drop in her mouth; 
and presently, as the dance was resumed and con- 

130 



A Knight in Denim 

fusion reigned afresh, she put it away from her 
unobserved. 

To sink out of sight and remain so was Essie s 
dearest wish, and for awhile circumstances favored 
her. 

"You will dance? I bring you somebody!" 
Mrs. Jentsch hastened to make offer of her offices. 

"Oh, no, no! Please don t!" Essie fairly 
begged. The company had ceased to stare, Haldean 
had left her to plunge into the thick of the frolic, 
and she felt freer to indulge her real preference. 

The hostess was not too coarsely made to have 
sympathy with evident distress, even though she 
might not fathom it. "You care not for to dance, 
then?" 

"No, please I would much rather watch the 
others." 

And so, for the present, was she suffered to 
efface herself almost she fancied that Mrs. 
Jentsch was standing guard over her to keep her 
from being molested; and she was profoundly 
grateful. The thought of taking any part in the 
orgy, for orgy it appeared to her, was intolerable. 
The stamping and shouting, the faces evilly aflame, 
the reek and the heat, the dust that hung like a 
vapor in the air how, as she contemplated these 
things, was she to believe them real ? How was she 
not in the grip of a horrid nightmare ? But worst 



A Knight in Denim 

of all and hardest to endure was the consciousness 
that the revelry grew every minute grosser. What 
manner of wrong should it not come to at length ? 

She searched, with her eyes, for her husband, 
and so heavy the dust and dense the crowd that she 
did not soon find him. And when she found him 
at last he was in the very forefront of the revelry. 
She saw him drink repeatedly, and every sign in 
formed her that he was intoxicated. He danced, 
and of all the gross antics none were grosser than 
his. She could not reach him without making her 
self conspicuous, and should she reach him she 
had no reason to expect him to do what she wished. 
She wished to go home, and she thought of slipping 
away all by herself. It wasn t so very far, but she 
didn t know the road, further than that it was 
lonely, and went through a very black ravine, and 
so she couldn t make up her mind. 

If she had known what was to come, or had 
the least intimation of it, she would have fled that 
place though a ravening lion waited without. 

As she sat, in such wise debating with herself, 
quaking with horror and utterly miserable, all at 
once a heavy hand was laid on her shoulder from 
behind, and with a scream of dismay she faced 
about to confront a great, hulking, hairy, lurching 
giant of a man, who regarded her in a manner to 
make her heart stop beating. 

132 



A Knight in Denim 

"Dance with me!" he bellowed, over the din, 
brokenly, and with an accent different from any 
she had ever heard. 

Essie was overwhelmed. She wanted to shake 
off the man s loathesome touch, to wither him by a 
glance, to bid him begone, but could no more do 
so than she could take wings and _fly from the 
hateful spot. " I I don t know how!" she faltered 
chokingly, and that was all. 

"Ha, ha! I show you!" 

The man hadn t let go his hold on her shoulder, 
and the next she knew he had lifted her to her feet 
and was actually dragging her with him through 
the wretched dance. Had she swooned in the 
meanwhile ? Anyway she was ready to swoon 
now, or to die outright for that matter, of fright, 
and shame. 

But straightway she conceived a fear of losing her 
wits in the midst of that turmoil, and among all her 
fears it grew to be, for the moment, the greatest; 
and so she strove to collect her thoughts and take 
counsel of prudence to make the best of the situa 
tion, in short, since the best was bad enough. And 
not unsuccessfully. It was on her lips to shriek, 
but she fought down the impulse, reflecting how 
little shrieking would avail her among that drunken 
crew, of whom none was in a mind to take her pro 
test seriously, even supposing she could make her- 

33 



A Knight in Denim 

self heard over the uproar. In spite of her frantic- 
aversion, she persuaded herself that there was noth 
ing to be gained by resistance; the better part were 
to bite her teeth together and submit to go through 
the dance with what of grace she might. That 
done she should consider further measures. If any 
sort of chance opened she should run away. But 
for the present she would submit lest it be the worse 
for her. 

She played her part resolutely, once her resolu 
tion was taken. A man, not the original Caliban 
who had dragged her into the dance, but another 
into whose hands she fell, went so far in the mani 
festation of his high spirits as to whirl her quite off 
her feet, and the shout of laughter which greeted 
her mishap and humiliation was like molten lead 
poured into her ears, so did it mortify her; but she 
held to her determination, looking forward to the 
end of the dance and her deliverance. 

The end of the dance came duly, but behold, 
the deliverance of Essie was not yet. As if Caliban 
divined her purpose to flee the place and were 
particularly bent on thwarting it, he still held her 
after all the figures were executed and the music 
had ceased. There was a general movement to 
ward the barrel dancers were disposed to refresh 
themselves after their strenuous exertions and the 
hairy giant lurched along with the others, prevail- 

134 



A Knight in Denim 

ing over them in the crowding and jostling in virtue 
of his huge bulk, and pulling his reluctant partner 
along with him. "Drink with me!" he hiccoughed. 
"Maybe you no know how drink, too? Then I 
show you! Ha, ha!" 

Nothing could be more dreadful. Essie forgot 
all about her prudent resolution, so pierced was she 
with the sense of her new peril, coming upon her 
suddenly and unforeseen just when she looked for 
her release. She cried out, and struggled madly 
to get away was quite the panic-stricken, despair 
ing woman, in short. Of course she drew attention 
to herself, and moved the drunken crew to more 
laughter at her expense they saw nothing but a 
huge practical joke in any one being forced to drink; 
but she was beyond caring for that. Even the 
definite thought of escape was no longer with her, 
else she would not have done as she did. She had 
no instinct left but to resist, like a bird taken cap 
tive, and without in the least considering how use 
less resistance would be. 

She was saved from the menace of the beer, how 
ever, even though her struggles went for nothing. 
But it was only to fall into a plight yet more dismal. 

The giant minded Essie s resistance no more 
than she had indeed been a wild bird given into 
his great, coarse hand; in fact, it pleased him rather 
than otherwise, as his loud merriment bore testi- 

35 



A Knight in Denim 

mony. The affair was manifestly the keenest 
kind of fun for him. But all at once there inter 
vened a third party, and though that party was a 
woman, too, and very little and frail to look at, 
the giant s crest fell instantly at her approach. 
The little woman had a tigerish glitter in her black 
eyes; her face, lit up by about every passion that 
goes to make faces hateful and fearsome, was that 
of a fury, and when she flew at the man in the 
fashion of an angry hawk, screaming and ruffling, 
he made haste to draw off, without parley. That 
was a wild bird of another color, decidedly. 

He was not the fury s prey, though. Once he 
had beaten his retreat in ignominious humility 
and amidst the vociferous jeers and taunts of the 
company she gave him not so much as a glance 
further. Her wrath was directed against that un 
happy sister of her own sex who was as innocent of 
any intended offence as any baby could be, in 
whose eyes all these proceedings were detestable 
and her part in them against her own wish and will. 

"Ha! Too pretty! I fix you!" screeched the 
hawk, and flew at Essie literally tooth and nail. 

What prompted her were not hard to guess, even 
though you did not know her to be the giant s wife. 
Jealousy has its peculiar stamp it does not trans 
form the woman scorned into a creature like none 
other even in hell itself, without leaving its visible 

136 



A Knight in Denim 

tracks. The woman was jealous to the point of 
madness she was obviously of the temperament 
most open to the control of the passion and bent 
on disfiguring her fancied rival, on destroying the 
beauty for which, as her distorted view led her to 
believe, she had been passed by. Essie s innocence 
of ill intent was no bar when did jealousy ever 
stop for innocence ? 

Of course the roysterers were missing nothing of 
the show; made speedily aware that something 
extraordinarily racy was in the wind, they paused 
in their roystering and pressed forward about the 
two women, forming a ring of pitiless, eager, leer 
ing faces. Essie cast a beseeching glance about 
her, and found no comfort nothing but mockery 
on every hand. She saw her husband s face not 
far away, and it leered like the others. She tried 
to call out to him, but her voice died on her lips. 

But she was not forsaken. Ere yet she was given 
to feel the claws of the fury, a familiar form shoul 
dered in before her a burly man in overalls, with 
bare feet which the sun had burned red in a word, 
Bill. 

"Wy ye, Miss Oshro!" The hulking Caliban 
was named Augirard, and the fury was the wife of 
his bosom, and Bill was not especially adept in the 
French tongue. "Wy ye, anyhow!" 

No knight ever arrived more opportunely, and 
37 



A Knight in Denim 

no lady in distress was ever gladder. "Oh, Bill; 
take me home!" cried Essie, and clung to him as a 
child might cling to its parent, as trustfully. 

They were an odd pair, to be sure, and they were 
showered with drunken raillery as they made their 
way out, but the lady rescued was not likely to be 
much troubled thereby. Though her knight had 
come to her clad in silver mail she could not have 
been more grateful to him. 



138 



CHAPTER X 

THOUGH the name the Valley bore was never 
good, its offending had been concededly in 
the way of those lesser faults due to the weakness of 
mankind easy failings, in short. Lilies were 
esteemed, as a class, none too virtuous, perhaps, to 
do the greater deeds of darkness rather were they 
too shiftless. Distinguished crimes, though of 
course they were a credit to nobody, nevertheless 
demanded certain positive traits of strength and 
courage which Lilies, in the common opinion of 
them, could not muster. Accordingly when old 
Gothard, the hermit who dwelt down by the creek 
in the midst of the marshes, was set upon in the 
boldest manner of highwaymanry, and robbed of 
a great sum of money which nobody dreamed of his 
having, and left insensible on the floor of his hut, 
it was almost an instant verdict with those best in 
formed that the wicked, wanton, insolent thing 
had not been done by an inhabitant of the Valley. 
"Tramps, most likely!" declared the world, or 
at any rate, in virtue of the indefatigable activi 
ties of the newspapers, a tolerably large fraction 
thereof. 

139 



A Knight in Denim 

Certainly a larger fraction, if you speak of that, 
than had ever heard of the Valley before. There 
were papers printed more than a hundred miles 
away which made mention, and no stingy mention 
either, of the robbery. A certain paper, indeed, 
went to the length of sending a skilled journalist 
to look the matter up, and he came and saw and 
was so far conquered that he wrote a whole column 
in the best style, though it dealt, to be sure, less with 
the robbery than with the curious social conditions 
which he found, or fancied he found. And all the 
papers were at one in the view that the crime had 
been committed by somebody from abroad. The 
grounds on which Lilies were so freely exculpated 
could not be called flattering, but any sort of an 
exculpation were better than none. 

The law had likewise its legions early in the 
field. There was the sheriff, whose badge of 
office stamped him the particular arm of the law; 
and there was moreover a considerable swarm of 
detectives, with mixed motives. 

Chiefly responsible for the activity of the detec 
tives, no doubt, was the reward of five hundred 
dollars offered by the county commissioners for in 
formation leading to the conviction of the guilty 
party or parties. It was more money than had 
been stolen, but none too much, by general con 
sent, to pay for a vindication of the law s majesty. 

140 



A Knight in Denim 

That was the main point, of course to get the 
law s majesty properly vindicated, to put it de 
finitely and for all time on record that the law 
might not be so outrageously affronted with im 
punity. So far from considering the deed any the 
less atrocious because the victim happened to be a 
person of small importance, the commissioners, 
and public sentiment with them, deemed the of 
fence all the greater for that not the least of the 
law s majesty lay in its solicitude for just such 
weak and unprotected members of society; and the 
five hundred dollars, though a good deal of money, 
was not begrudged. Not a few, in fact, thought 
the reward insufficient in the premises and would 
have one thousand dollars offered. 

The smaller sum seemed to be serving the pur 
pose, however. At any rate the sleuths and hawk- 
shaws which it drew into the affair were not only 
numerous but in several instances celebrated. 
Especially there was a team of thief-takers known 
far and wide by the style of Kenealy and Cripps. 
It caused much of a stir when Kenealy and Cripps 
were known to be on the ground; and when won 
der arose as to how such famous men could be at 
tracted by a paltry five hundred dollars, there were 
those of deeper discernment ready to point out that 
money wasn t everything that your true detective, 
merely as a matter of professional pride and re- 

141 



A Knight in Denim 

gardless of the pay promised, wasn t going to let a 
hard nut go by him uncracked. 

And if here was a hard nut, straightway it ap 
peared that Messrs. Kenealy and Cripps were the 
lads to lay its true inwardness open to the light of 
truth. They let no grass grow under their dis 
tinguished feet, but got into the game without de 
lay, and within an astonishingly few hours a war 
rant had been sworn out and an arrest made, at 
their instance. 

It is a rare village, what with the emptiness of the 
life afforded by villages, which hasn t its group of 
bad boys, and Atro City could by no means claim 
the exemption. In fact, it had not only the usual 
run of bad boys, but among them a character so ex 
ceedingly reprobate that when Kenealy and Cripps 
fastened on him as the perpetrator of the robbery, 
people looked at one another blankly and asked 
why they hadn t suspected the fellow before. No 
body had suspected him, for a moment, but none 
the less his guilt seemed perfectly clear to all can 
did minds once the accusing ringer was directed 
to him his reputation was enough to damn him, 
let alone the other evidence. 

Kite Ostrander was the name he went by. His 
mother was an inmate of the almshouse and so 
slack of wit she couldn t say who his father might 
be, and well, not to dwell on a painful subject, 

142 



A Knight in Denim 

Kite s antecedents were as little apt as the reputa 
tion he had earned for himself to raise a presump 
tion in his favor. By an odd coincidence he was a 
hermit, too, living like a beast in a shack he had 
thrown together of refuse boards, and that circum 
stance, since it at least betokened an independent 
spirit, might have counted to his credit, only that 
nothing could be so counted in the face of the out 
rageous conduct whereby he made himself a stench 
in the nostrils of decency. And the worst of it was 
the low cunning of the boy he was not yet twenty 
which had enabled him always so to cover his 
tracks that none of his deviltry could be legally 
brought home to him. But now, it appeared, there 
had come a turning in the long lane; thanks to the 
fine work of Kenealy and Cripps, the young fox was 
cleverly caught. 

Direct testimony against him was confined, for 
the present, to a scrap of paper found in his shack 
by the sheriff who, at the instance of the detectives, 
went down there and made a search during Kite s 
absence. It was a torn fragment of the first page 
of a German periodical, with the mailing label stuck 
to it, and old Gothard s name on the label. It 
wasn t much in itself, but its significance bulked 
big, and when Kite came home he was pounced on 
and clapped in jail. People called him foolhardy 
for not staying away, but after all there was no ac- 

H3 



A Knight in Denim 

counting for the ways of criminals. Weren t they 
forever betraying themselves, as a matter of fact ? 
And anyway it was cause for general rejoicing that 
the malefactor had been run down at last. 

But the stir of stirs, so to say, was when word 
went forth that they were going to put Kite through 
the third degree. People had heard of the third 
degree, that mighty engine whereby criminals were 
convicted out of their own mouths, but hearing of 
it was very different from standing within a few 
feet of where it was actually being resorted to. 
Kite, in close custody, had been brought over from 
the lock-up to the justice s office, and the county 
attorney was in there, and Kenealy and Cripps, 
and of course great things were to be expected. It 
wasn t to be doubted that Kenealy and Cripps were 
in the highest sense experts in giving the third de 
gree the boy s cunning would avail him very little 
against their consummate skill. 

The process lasted two hours, and the man in the 
street, to say nothing of the woman and the child, 
though all were there in force, was in a fever of 
suspense when the door at length opened and Kite 
emerged. A broken, snivelling, cowering wretch ? 
That was about what you had a right to expect, 
certainly, yet it was hardly what you beheld. If 
you have ever seen a captive badger prodded with 
a stick, you have some notion of Kite Ostrander s 

144 



A Knight in Denim 

general demeanor. He looked very sulky, very 
resentful, but not at all beaten or broken. In fact, 
being led back to jail with the crowd streaming 
after, he carried himself about as usual. The 
sheriff had a queer mysterious air about him, and 
the county attorney likewise, and if anybody 
seemed downright troubled it was Kenealy and 
Cripps. And behold, these two chief actors in the 
thrilling drama weren t going to stay to the end. 
Instead of that they forthwith hired a rig and had 
themselves driven across the country to another 
branch of the railway, and it was announced, on 
what authority none knew, that they were called 
away by other business. 

They never came back, but the waters which 
they had stirred were destined to yield yet another 
sensation. The county attorney and the sheriff 
went out and had a talk with Gothard about the 
scrap of paper, and he could tell them that the 
publication of which it was a part had been intact 
and in his hands the day after the robbery. The 
day after the robbery, as he distinctly recalled, he 
had read the part of the publication where the label 
was. What did the hermit s direct and manifestly 
sincere testimony suggest ? Well, not to beat about 
the bush, that Kenealy and Cripps had themselves 
put the scrap of paper in Kite Ostrander s shack, 
where the searching party afterward found it. 

H5 



A Knight in Denim 

"Planted evidence!" quoth the sheriff, assum 
ing to speak in the technical style, and the great 
heart of the public was assailed with horror over 
the revelation of what famous detectives were will 
ing to do for the sake of a reward, though it should 
be but five hundred dollars. What might have 
happened if there had been one thousand dol 
lars up ? During many a vacuous hour to come 
villagers would debate, inquiring whether the maj 
esty of the law did not surfer more by such man 
ner of vindication than by the original affront. 

Of course Kite had to be set at large. And the 
robbery was as much a mystery as ever. 

Haldean had made himself conspicuous in the 
pursuit from the first, all without giving particular 
cause for comment, the occasion being what it was; 
and from the first he had been quick and vigorous 
to combat the prevailing belief that no inhabitant 
of the Valley could have done the job. He could 
point out circumstances, too, which appeared to 
favor his contrary view. His theory was rather 
fine-spun in spots, but people had to admit its 
merit notwithstanding. 

Especially significant, as Haldean construed it, 
was the fact that old Gothard had none of the 
marks of a miser about him. A serene old man, 
happy in his solitude down there by the creek, 
spending most of his time pottering about among 

146 



A Knight in Denim 

his flowers that could never bring him any money, 
keeping a few mongrel chickens and a scrubby cow 
and a pig or two, making, in short, but the barest 
and simplest living for himself, with every sign of 
caring to make no more who should guess that he 
had a hoard of gold in his cabin ? Certainly no 
casual tramp. 

"That robber," argued Haldean, "knew Goth- 
ard not only better than any tramp could know him, 
but better than most of his neighbors. He had 
studied the old man, have no doubt of that." 

The sheriff was impressed. Others were im 
pressed as well, but the sheriff most of all. Hal- 
dean showed his superior culture in his discourse 
talked like a book, indeed; and his theory was un 
deniably ingenious and looked below the surface. 

The obvious is often misleading!" he declared. 

"You know hit!" assented the sheriff, flattered 
at being addressed in scholarly terms and bravely 
pretending to understand. 

They two became very thick and were much seen 
together. The sheriff was vastly disgusted with 
the trick which Kenealy and Cripps had played, 
and vowed he would put no more trust in detec 
tives; he openly frowned on the activities of these 
gentry, putting every obstacle in their way; and 
when, before very long, the sleuths and hawk- 
shaws having given up and withdrawn, he threw 

H7 



A Knight in Denim 

out dark hints as to sundry clews which he held in 
his hand, he was understood to refer to something 
Haldean had dug up. People were far from scoff 
ing even people of the Valley. Since the frolic 
at Jentsch s, where the master of Throstlewood 
had proved himself about the sprightliest Roman 
of them all, he was in better odor, and besides it 
had to be conceded that a man might be very un- 
neighborly and still have a faculty for seeing into 
things. The sheriff s hints, in fine, gave rise to a 
very general impression that genuine developments 
were at hand. 

Haldean, in these days, talked a great deal in 
public, to anybody and everybody, with a courtesy 
which people found as agreeable as it was new in 
him; but it was the sheriff s attention, and his 
alone, that he directed to the queer conduct of old 
Gothard. 

At any rate, Haldean s skilful manner of laying 
it open to the light could make it seem queer, and if 
nothing would have been thought of it only for his 
keen discernment, why, all the more credit to him. 
Here, speaking of Gothard, was a man stricken in 
years and none too alert in his faculties, subjected 
to a shock sufficient to leave him insensible, in 
which condition he remained for some little time, 
possibly half an hour. No claim was made that 
a blow had rendered him unconscious, or any form 

148 



A Knight in Denim 

of bodily violence simply it was the shock of be 
ing so outrageously intruded upon. Of course he 
would naturally come off with confused impres 
sions of what had taken place, but ought not these 
impressions, under a conscientious and sincere 
effort of the memory, to incline to clear up, as time 
passed ? What should be thought when, instead 
of that, they became only the more clouded and in 
definite ? That was the queer part, as Haldean 
made it appear day by day old Gothard recalled 
less and less, till presently he recalled virtually 
nothing. 

During near a week after the robbery there was 
incessant tramping about the hermit s cabin, till 
his flowers were destroyed and the grass of his 
meadow crushed in the mire. But Kite s arrest 
served to turn the tide of interest in another direc 
tion, and when Kenealy and Cripps s bubble burst, 
the implications so occupied the popular imagina 
tion that Gothard was left to himself, and then it 
was that Haldean went quietly over and had a talk 
with him. 

He found the old man placidly busy, in the midst 
of his ruins, trying to bind up some broken holly 
hocks. 

"Well, Mr. Gothard, no doubt you remember 
better now, aboutwhat happened to you that night," 
remarked the master, with a propitiatory air. 

149 



A Knight in Denim 

"No, I remember me worse," replied the hermit, 
looking very much troubled all at once. 

Haldean assumed the inquisitorial manner. 
"How long after you first saw the robber till you 
became insensible?" he asked. 

"Maybe half minute, maybe more, maybe not 
so much that is just so good as I can tell you." 

"Did he speak?" 

"He do not speak." 

"Had he a mask on ?" 

"He put his face under a handkerchief." 

"You could see how he was dressed ?" 

"I have tell you just so well as I can." 

"You thought at first that the man wore blue 
overalls." 

"Blue ? I have tell you just so well as I can." 

Haldean shifted from the inquisitorial to the 
hortatory manner. He strove to move Gothard s 
resentment, enlarging on the grievous wrong it 
was that an inoffensive old man should be stripped 
of all he had. That, of course, was to take it for 
granted that the hermit was keeping something 
back. But there was nothing gained. Gothard s 
distress was apparent. He would shrug his shoul 
ders and mutter and otherwise betray inward dis 
turbance. But he would say no more to the point. 

The master reported the interview to the sheriff, 
with the benefit of his discernment at its keenest, 

150 



A Knight in Denim 

and it was thereupon resolved to subject the hermit 
to a little judicious pressure. 

"He knows who robbed him, and he has made 
up his mind not to tell," Haldean avowed, and the 
sheriff believed. 

And so they went out to the old man s place to 
gether, of an evening, after dark. Gothard was 
reading by his lamp, in the very paper from which 
Kenealy and Cripps had torn the scrap to plant in 
Kite Ostrander s shack; serenely, until he caught 
sight of them, whereupon he was troubled enough. 

This is the sheriff you know who he is!" 
announced Haldean, very solemnly. 

Yes, Gothard knew only too well for his own 
peace of mind. 

"He stands for the law, Mr. Gothard. You do 
not wish to trifle with the law, I presume?" 

Clearly the hermit had no such wish. 

"Very well, Mr. Gothard. But if a person knows 
who has done a crime, and does not tell what he 
knows, he trifles with the law, and is himself a 
criminal." 

The old man gasped. Haldean punctuated with 
an interval of silence and repeated: "He is himself 
a criminal!" 

The stratagem was entirely successful. A great 
fear laid hold of old Gothard. He was a simple 
soul withal, his notions of public authority derived 



A Knight in Denim 

from a civilization where the reins were more ar 
bitrarily drawn, and he dared no longer do as he 
would. It speedily proved to be true that he was 
holding something back, for now, in the stress of 
his fear, he not only described what clothes the 
robber had worn, but told whose clothes they were. 



152 



CHAPTER XI 

TO the ordinary unsophisticated fancy nothing 
is more pleasing than an early spring; but 
there are those who, made wise by experience and 
perhaps bitter, will be sorry to see the world starting 
out of its winter sleep too soon it were far better, 
they insist, that the world overslept. There came, 
in the dispensation of providence, an early spring 
to the Valley, and straightway the voice of the 
croaker let itself be heard. "We ll pay for it!" 
quoth the prophet of evil, his meaning being that 
every day of delight was borrowed of the future 
at ruinous interest. He would not be surprised, in 
fact, if the debt were to double before the account 
should be squared up. "We ll pay for it!" he 
croaked, ill-omenedly. 

Haldean, mingling freely with his neighbors these 
days, described it as an English spring, such as they 
used to have in Hampshire when he was a boy. 
In Hampshire, he testified, they looked for birds 
back in February, and while that made it necessary 
to strain the comparison a bit, it was a fact that 
horned larks began to be seen in the Valley before 
February had ended, while the first half of March 



A Knight in Denim 

was made signal among all first halves of March 
by the song of the bluebird and the robin. On St. 
Patrick s Day the children gathered crocuses and 
buttercups, and the expulsion of the snakes from 
Ireland could itself be scarcely accounted a greater 
miracle. Weeks sooner than usual the pastures 
were so well grown that the cows grazed their fill 
off them and contemned the dry fodder of the 
barns; and the milk and butter were the rich and 
golden butter of the average June. 

There happened to be a comet lurking about 
that year, and the prophets of evil made much of 
the circumstance. "Comets," they expounded, 
"mostly means war, anyhow some calamity. If 
we don t have a war, it ll be something else, maybe 
something worse. Injuns knows all about such like 
matters, and you don t ketch no Injun a-plantin 
no crops so long s there s a comet hangin round." 
No Indian lived nearer than the reservation, and 
unless report did the red brother injustice, it was 
easy to catch him planting no crop, comet or no 
comet, but none the less he and his practice con 
stituted a sufficient peg to hang dismal forebodings 
on. The nature of comets was much discussed, 
and while it wasn t like the common man to fret 
himself in the season of prosperity, there came to be 
rather a general acceptance of the doctrine that a 
comet just naturally sucked somewhat out of the 

54 



A Knight in Denim 

atmosphere. Prophets, assuming the lead and 
pointing speculation its way, were boldly specific. 
"The comet/ they declared, "has gone and sucked 
out all the cold, and that s what makes the weather 
so blamed warm. But just you wait till that there 
comet lets go, and the cold comes back on us all of 
a sudden!" 

In effect, and saying nothing about causes, the 
cold did come back, all of a sudden, and just when 
it was least wanted, namely, in the first week of 
May. There was a terrific frost, so that ice formed 
thick on still water, and the ground was frozen 
seemingly as hard as you ever saw it in the dead 
of winter. In every direction you could hear the 
wagons bumping over the ground, and a more des 
olate sound were hard to imagine, when you knew 
what it meant. 

Crueller destruction never was. The trees had 
leaved out completely, and even more thickly than 
usual, and now every leaf hung black and dead. 
But that was by no means the worst. The worst 
was the blossoms, for whereas the leaves would 
grow again presently, there could be no more blos 
soms till another spring. The clusters of lilacs 
were just on the point of breaking, and the frost 
penetrated through and through their sappy stems 
till they would snap off in your fingers like icicles. 
The exquisite bloom of the linden, whence the bees 

155 



A Knight in Denim 

were just beginning to draw their choicest honey, 
were swept away at a stroke, while the fruit blos 
soms nothing could be sadder than their plight. 
Did you ever chance to see a grand old apple-tree, 
true and faithful to its part, filled in every branch 
and twig and shoot with flowers and every flower 
fit to become a big red apple did you ever see a 
tree like that stricken with a killing frost ? Ani 
mate suffering is hardly more pathetic. Almost 
you can be persuaded that the plant has indeed a 
soul, so dejected and forlorn does it look. 

The day after the frost was cold and cheerless, 
with a biting wind blowing and never a gleam of 
sunshine through the steely blue clouds. The 
weather sharps accounted it a fortunate turn, 
pointing out that a warm sun striking down on the 
nipped vegetation would make a bad matter worse; 
and though you might wonder how that could be, 
they were doubtless right. But none the less it was 
a dreary, comfortless day. Essie thought of her 
brambles, and as soon as she might she slipped out, 
wrapped in her heaviest coat and none too warm 
at that, to see how they had fared. Her heart was 
heavy, but not utterly unhopeful. It was impossi 
ble not to hope, even had there been no ground, 
and there was ground, since undeniably the blos 
soms of the raspberry were under the thick leaves, 
and her brambles, moreover, were in a degree pro- 



A Knight in Denim 

tected by here and there a tree spreading its shelter 
ing arms over them. 

Nothing had been enough to save them, how 
ever. They were gone, utterly. She searched 
among the thorns if perchance an occasional blos 
som had survived, and there was none. Essie 
fought for her hope till it was as dead as the leaves 
and the flowers, and then she sank down on the 
hard, cold ground, and wept. 

"Am I to have no joy in life whatever?" she 
moaned, and truly it seemed to her that she was 
drinking the cup of trial to its last bitter dregs. 

The subscription to the Home Journal had some 
weeks yet to run, and those weeks were to her 
like the last hours of a condemned man. She was 
amazed at the reality of her tragedy, as often as she 
considered its elements, how trivial they were of 
themselves; but real it was notwithstanding, and 
poignant. To such extremity had she been re 
duced, so desperately starved was she, that to lose 
her paper were to lose everything worth while no 
cheerful outlook, to be sure. Perhaps it argued 
something morbid in her, but whether or no, she 
could not shake off the sense of bereavement, or 
keep it, for the moment, from overwhelming her. 
As her grief spent its violence she thought of the 
future more calmly, and even then the best com 
fort she could foresee lay in those old copies which 

157 



A Knight in Denim 

she had religiously preserved, not so much with the 
idea that she might read them again as out of re 
spect for that which had been so precious. 

Presently, too, she thought of Bill, and conceived 
a purpose to withhold the truth from him. It 
would not be easy, though. Not but what she 
might read old copies to him over and over indefi 
nitely, without his ever detecting the difference 
in her heart she had known all along that he was 
only pretending to understand, and what he did 
not understand he could not remember. No, the 
difficulty she anticipated was not in fooling Bill, 
but in denying herself the relief of confiding her 
trouble to him. Perhaps that was morbid, like 
wise, when she should find it so hard to forego a 
gratification obviously selfish and rather silly 
withal, but none the less it was hard. And still she 
held to her purpose stoutly, deeming it the rightful 
part to bear her cross in silence. 

The subscription duly expired, and another week 
passed by, and though no Home Journal came to 
hand, Bill was steadfast in the old habit. 

"Well, what s into the paper this time, Essie ?" 
he inquired, settling himself for an evening of 
knightly listening, as usual. 

Her heart was in her throat, so that she had much 
ado to repress the sudden rush of emotions which 
answered to the appeal of his simple faith. Only 



A Knight in Denim 

by dint of the utmost effort did she maintain the 
front of cheerfulness as she brought out the old 
paper to read. A sharp eye might have found a 
number of reasons wherefore to suspect it wasn t 
a fresh copy, but who should suppose Bill, the 
simpleton, to be gifted with an eye of that kind ? 

She answered him with literal truth. "I don t 
know, Bill I haven t had a chance to look, yet." 

She opened the paper and the familiar aspect of 
everything in it gave her a sick turn. All too surely 
there was to be but the faintest shadow of satisfac 
tion in it for her, when she could find scarcely a line 
which she did not know by heart with so hungry 
a mind had she devoured the feast in the first place 
that her memory would hold it long. But at least 
it would be all one to Bill. She glanced at him 
furtively and observed that he couldn t possibly be 
more attentive it was all one to him, the old as 
entertaining as the new. A singular position it 
was, truly, with Bill pretending to understand and 
herself pretending to read something new almost 
it was funny, in spite of the tragedy. 

Her revelation came with quite a shock. So far 
as she could perceive, Bill suspected the deceit as 
little as she had expected, and when he made mani 
fest the contrary all at once, he startled her. 

"F m wasn t they no paper come this week ?" 
he asked, bluntly. 

159 



A Knight in Denim 

And Essie gave up the wish to tell, thus en 
couraged, rose too strong to be resisted, and she 
told him. No paper had come that week, and none 
would come next week, or the week after, or ever 
again. She needed to gulp considerably to keep 
down her feelings, and even with all her gulping 
there were tears in her eyes. 

"Don t cry, Essie!" coaxed Bill, as he might 
coax a child, and she was strangely pleased to be 
treated so. 

"It s such a little thing to wish for!" she cried, 
dolefully. They would send the paper three 
months for fifty cents. If I had only fifty cents, 
that would do for the present." 

Bill puckered his brows thoughtfully. "I reckon 
fifty cents don t grow on ev ry bush!" 

"Oh, it s such a trifle no more than I would 
have spent for candy, once!" She checked herself, 
without saying all that was on her lips. What use 
to complain ? 

f Y gorry! For candy, now! Fifty cents for 
candy!" 

Of course he was pretending once more the 
sum of money conveyed no notion to his mind. 
And what was almost provoking, his thoughts 
seemed hereupon to shy away from the cause of all 
her woe. He stared at her so vacuously, so seem 
ingly without grasping the situation, that she began 

1 60 



A Knight in Denim 

to be vexed with him, and with herself for having 
made a confidant of him. She fell silent, fearing 
to speak lest she say something unkind. 

Shortly he took himself off to bed, saying no more, 
apparently as little concerned with her grief as if 
he knew nothing of it. She conceived that he was 
virtually ignorant of it she had told him and he 
had pretended to understand and that was all. 
And who but herself had taught him to pretend ? 
By the next evening he had forgotten all about the 
paper, forgotten his steadfast habit, even; he never 
mentioned it, and he whiled away his idle hour 
blinking and yawning vociferously, as in days of 
yore, ere yet the Home Journal had come into his 
life. Essie was hurt, and afflicted with a deeper 
sense of loneliness. 

"He s glad to be rid of it now he won t have to 
make believe any more!" she reflected, blaming 
him, though she held herself to blame. Undeni 
ably she was near, in her wretchedness, to doing 
Bill less than justice. 

The comet, as presently transpired, wasn t done 
with the world. For from resting content with hav 
ing sucked up the cold and let it loose all at once, 
the celestial wanderer, by the testimony of those 
who professed to know its devious ways, was 
straightway up to new tricks. 

"It s suckin up all the rain every blamed 
161 



A Knight in Denim 

thing s goin to be burnt right out of the ground!" 
announced the prophets, and a second time were 
their prophecies borne out by the event. 

From May till October no rain fell beyond a 
few scattering drops now and then the veriest 
mockery. Scarcely was there vouchsafed so much 
as an occasional cloud to temper the fierce heat of 
the sun. Not only sandy Throstlewood suffered, 
but the Valley at large as well, even the lowest and 
moistest tracts where neither the memory of liv 
ing men nor yet tradition rendered any account of 
drouth having made itself felt before. That thing 
most unlooked-for in those fat regions, a real scarc 
ity of the fruits of the earth, was threatened. And 
great was the moan and mourning in consequence. 
It would seem that men had never failed to do their 
part, so roundly did they blame nature for failing, 
just the once, to do hers. 

Everybody was pinched, but none, probably, like 
Essie. Her burden was indeed grown heavy. 
The family s poverty was intensified, as a matter 
of course, but they had been so poor already that 
privations merely material could impose, on the 
woman at least, no new hardship to speak of. In 
point of fact, she minded such privations very little. 
Whereas the people all about her fretted because 
there was no corn to sell, and no hogs, and so noth 
ing to buy tobacco and beer with, the two staples 

162 



A Knight in Denim 

of happiness as the Valley knew it, Essie would be 
very willing indeed to forego not only such mere 
luxuries, but meat and drink as well, if so be by 
that she could come by the food of the mind which 
in her loneliness she so craved. Therein lay all 
the pinch of poverty for her, and when the scarcity 
came on she saw her situation only the more hope 
less. She was cruelly preyed upon by her hunger, 
so cruelly that at length, in a species of despera 
tion, she could bring herself to confess her misery 
to her husband and implore his pity. She knew 
not what he could do for her, even if he would, but 
none the less she felt herself forced to confess and 
implore. 

"Oh, Tudor!" she pleaded, throwing away all 
reserve and all but kneeling to him. "Only let me 
have something to read something to think about, 
and I will live on bread and water!" 

He heard her entreaties unmoved, just as she 
might have foreseen he would. "You may yet 
see the time when you ll be glad to get bread and 
water!" he coldly rejoined. 

"Cannot you have a little sympathy with me, 
Tudor?" 

"What do you wish, then ?" 

"Fifty cents! Only fifty cents to pay for my 
paper for three months!" 

And the man mocked her. 

63 



A Knight in Denim 

" Only three kernels of corn, mother, only three kernels 

of corn, 

To keep the little life I have till the coming of the 
morn! " 

he quoted, and laughed brutally. "Of course 
your paper is the merest luxury, and who can have 
luxuries now ? I can point you to a man who is 
wretched because he can t have the rum he loves. 
He, too, fancies he is being deprived of something 
necessary. For aught I can see he has as good a 
right to say that his rum isn t a luxury as you have 
to say that your paper isn t a luxury. Come, tell 
me, what is the difference ?" 

"Oh, Tudor, are you determined not to under 
stand ?" 

"We all have to forego something at such a time. 
Why should you claim exemption, pray ? Can you 
not consider that there are others in the world be 
side yourself?" 

The harsh taunt cut her to the quick, and she 
burst into tears. "Oh, Tudor, how can you, after 
all that has happened ?" she sobbed, and never, 
perhaps, had felt herself so unkindly dealt with. 

There was left of the store of fine linen which 
had once been hers a dozen handkerchiefs, plain, 
but of the best quality, and never used. She had 
never shown much aptitude for needlework, but 
there is in every one, and especially every woman, 

164 



A Knight in Denim 

a faculty which develops only under the press of 
hard necessity, and so Essie made out, by dint of 
infinite pains, to hemstitch these handkerchiefs 
and to embellish each with a tasteful initial in the 
corner; all with a view to selling them to the mer 
chant in the village. It was her last resort. 

She debated much, while she labored, as to 
the price she should ask. The handkerchiefs were 
easily worth five dollars, on the score of the material 
alone, let alone the work. But five dollars seemed 
too great a sum it were tempting fate to ask so 
much. Fearful of spoiling her market by holding 
her goods too dear, she thought of four dollars, 
then of three dollars, then of two dollars. Could 
she consent to drop below two dollars, the cost of 
a year s subscription to the Home Journal ? Yes, 
she could anything rather than run the risk of 
having her offering rejected; and the upshot was 
that when Bill took the handkerchiefs to Atro City, 
as he had taken the berries, he carried a note to the 
merchant, asking only fifty cents. 

"One handkerchief is worth more!" sighed 
Essie, and bit her lip to keep from crying over the 
sorry sacrifice. 

And after all was her offering rejected. The 
merchant wrote back to express his regret, but 
withal he could not alter the fact that there was 
no demand whatever, in these hard times, for 



A Knight in Denim 

articles of that sort his customers were driven 
to provide themselves with bread and butter, and 
had nothing wherewith to pay for embroidered 
handkerchiefs. 

And Bill, meanwhile ? Of him she thought no 
better than that he had forgotten all about her great 
need; she sent him to do her errands in the village, 
and regarded him as she might a big, faithful dog, 
expecting of him no more service than a dog might 
render. But he had not forgotten, as it chanced. 
In a flush of excitement he came to her, one mem 
orable day, with his hands clasped tight behind 
him in the manner of a child who has some great 
thing to disclose and aims to make it the greater 
by suspense. 

"How much did ye say that there paper was to 
cost, Essie?" he asked, eagerly. 

Her heart gave a bound. "Oh, Bill, you don t 
mean that you ve got the money!" she cried. 

He held out his hand and in it lay a two-dollar 
bill, a silver dollar, and some smaller coins. " Meb- 
be taint nough, though!" 

"Oh, plenty, Bill for a whole year! And you 
wish me to take it?" 

"Help self! Help self, Essie!" 

She was too overjoyed, for the moment, to think 
of much of anything beyond her good fortune, and 
least of all did it occur to her that she ought to make 

166 



A Knight in Denim 

inquiry as to where the money had come from. 
Not until the two-dollar bill had been folded in a 
letter and sent off to New York was she troubled 
with misgivings on that head. And even then they 
were not very serious. She wondered, and that 
was about all. When she put the question to Bill 
direct, and he only chuckled and looked mysterious, 
she deemed that rather like him he was the child 
once more, making much of a secret; and she was 
content to reflect that there were ways in which he 
might have earned the money. It was a fact that 
the drought had so lessened the work about the 
farm as to leave him with fully half his time on his 
hands, and though it would be strange if any 
body thereabouts was in a position to pay wages 
in cash, nothing was impossible. 

Now, old Gothard had been robbed the night 
before, and Essie was mightily shocked by that 
untoward incident. But never in the remotest 
way did it connect itself, in her mind, with her own 
good fortune. 



167 



CHAPTER XII, 

BILL chose to do his own mending, for the most 
part, and that accounted for the very peculiar 
patch there was on the left knee of his overalls. If 
you had any eye at all for peculiarities you could 
hardly help but observe that patch, and remem 
ber it. Old Gothard remembered it all too well. 
Furthermore, down near the bottom of the other 
leg, was a row of rents, too small to need mending 
in clothing destined to rough usage, but entirely 
noticeable, provided you had the eye for such things. 
Old Gothard had the eye and remembered the row 
of small rents likewise. In short, being persuaded 
at last to open his heart freely, he could testify 
that the overalls which the robber had worn were 
Bill s and none other. They brought the garment 
and laid it before him and he identified it, with 
much sorrow, but positively. 

It was a sad business for the hermit, and the 
least of his mourning was for the loss of his money. 
"I forgeef him!" he protested, and begged that 
nothing be done. 

"The law cannot forgive there is too much at 
stake!" Haldean solemnly rejoined, and Gothard 
submitted with a groan. 

168 



A Knight in Denim 

A warrant having been duly sworn out, the sheriff 
saw fit to muster rather a strong party to help him 
serve it. Haldean went along, of course it had 
come to the pass that the arm of the law was loath 
to move without his present support and concur 
rence; but inasmuch as scuffling was not his part, 
and the sheriff himself was a lightweight and no 
fighter, and there was no telling what Bill might not 
take it into his muddled head to do in considera 
tion of all these circumstances, two stout deputies 
were prudently sworn in. Bill had a streak of the 
savage in him Haldean could vouch for that 
he was moreover strong as a bull by common re 
port, and the law, setting out to prevail, could ill 
afford to run the risk of being prevailed over. The 
deputies were warned that there might be brisk 
work for them, and on those terms they took ser 
vice, a bit nervous but withal resolute. 

They found their man down on his knees weed 
ing out some weather-worn mangel-wurzels. He 
saw them coming, and though his usual fashion 
would be to stop and stare, he bent to his work only 
the more assiduously. Quite likely, since his mas 
ter was with the party, he took them for company 
who were being shown about the estate. At any rate 
he barely glanced up at them, saying never a word. 

It fell naturally to Haldean to do the talking 
that was the function particularly suited to his 

169 



A Knight in Denim 

talents. "Harbaugh," said he, curtly, "these gen 
tlemen wish you to go along with them. * 

"Kayn t do it, cap!" Bill promptly replied. 
"Leastways not to-day, an most likely not to-mor- 
rer nuther. Cal late it s goin to take me plum 
two days to git over these here mangolds the way 
they d otter be got over." 

"Come, come, sir no nonsense! These gentle 
men can t wait their time is valuable." 

"Kayn t help it, cap! I low somebody s got 
to look sharp if them there cows is goin to have em 
anything much to eat next winter. Maybe you 
don t know how tis with mangolds. Mangolds is 
durn pa tic lar, sort of. If they hain t kep wed 
out, why they just nachly don t mount to nothin 
much, specially where it s tall dry, like tis this year. 
An they hain t no way they kin be kep wed out 
not unless ye git down an do bout so much finger- 
work, like. Ye kayn t work em out with a hoss, 
an then agin ye kayn t work em out with a 
hoe." 

The sheriff scratched his head in perplexity. 
Here was constructive resistance to the law, but 
just how was it to be met ? Failing overt violence, 
how was force to be brought to bear ? Bill, edging 
along on all fours and busy with the weeds, was no 
such figure of flagrant defiance as should put the 
law to its resources, even though he should leave 

170 



A Knight in Denim 

no room to doubt that he meant to stay where he 
was; his attitude, in fine, constituted, for the mo 
ment, a problem. Haldean, in his capacity of coun 
sellor to the expedition, was called on for advice, 
and the emergency found him not unready; and 
his whispered suggestion that the deputies step 
stealthily up and seize Bill by either arm before he 
could have time to strike out, was straightway acted 
upon. Measures so harsh might not be necessary, 
and yet they might; and they were easiest taken if 
taken at once, without parley. 

Bill was vastly astonished at being laid hold of 
in such unceremonious style. "What in tarnation 
jinks!" he cried, in a voice of thunder. "Look 
where yer steppin ! You ll tromp them there 
mangolds if ye hain t more keerful!" 

The sheriff, having as he fancied the whip-hand, 
would waste no more time beating about the bush. 
"Come along, my man!" said he, assuming an 
authoritative air. 

"Not by a jugful!" said Bill, and stood up, and 
shook himself free, as a great mastiff might shake 
off a couple of terriers. "You gents quit yer 
foolin , now!" he added, earnestly, though still 
without a touch of temper. 

The gents had discreetly fallen back it was 
their turn to be astonished, especially the deputies 
who had felt the giant s strength. The sheriff was 

171 



A Knight in Denim 

for summoning more help. " We ll have to have a 
possy commytakus!" he declared, excitedly. 

"Perhaps it would be well to read the warrant!" 
Haldean called out, from a safe distance. 

Just how the reading of the warrant was to help 
matters did not at once appear, but at any rate it 
was a thoroughly proper formality, and could do 
no harm. The document carried a seal or two, 
which flashed showily in the sun as it was opened 
out, and these no doubt heightened the effect. 
But let the why and wherefore be as they might, 
Bill was very visibly impressed, and listened with 
his mouth dropped open. 

"What mout that there be?" he demanded, 
when the reading was at length finished. 

That is the warrant of the court, charging me, 
on my oath and bounden duty, to arrest your per 
son," answered the sheriff, with a pompous flourish. 

"My what?" 

"Your person that is, you yourself!" 

Bill s face glowed. "You ve kem out here on 
puppose to rest me ?" he exclaimed, incredulously. 

"Yes, sir that s what we re here for." 

"Well, y gorry, why didn t ye say so? Why 
didn t ye say so afore ye spoke, as the feller said ? 
So ye want to rest me, do ye ? Y gorry, I never 
s posed I d be rested! With all the papers, too! 
Y gorry!" 

172 



A Knight in Denim 

The amount of it was plain to be seen Bill s 
vanity had been touched, and touched profoundly. 
The vision of the egotist magnified the distinction 
till the disgrace was lost to sight. What to the 
ordinary man would be a bitter draught was to him 
a cup charged to the brim with the high wine of 
flattery, and he quaffed so deeply of it that he be 
came as it were intoxicated. Once the sheriff s 
intention was made clear to him, so far from resist 
ing, he was chiefly anxious to further the business 
if aught disturbed him it was the fear lest the wine 
be snatched away from his lips. At Haldean s 
instance, manacles were snapped on his wrists, 
and that proved a most particular gratification. 

"Y gorry, I ve heerd tell of them there things, 
but, y gorry, I never did think I d have em put on 
me, some day!" he said, and swelled proudly. 

The mangel-wurzels, but a moment since the ob 
jects of his very great solicitude, lest they be tram 
pled, he forgot completely and trod them himself, 
with ruthless foot. In a real sense he was lifted 
out of the world that had been his it existed no 
more for him. True, he thought of Essie, but in a 
curious, transported way. 

"Cap, you tell Essie to step out an see me with 
these here gimcracks on me!" he bawled back to 
Haldean, who, the arrest having been duly effected, 
chose to separate himself from the party. 

73 



A Knight in Denim 

In all probability the word was not conveyed 
to Essie anyway she did not step out, and Bill s 
disappointment was very apparent thereupon; but 
other opportunities for showing off speedily pre 
sented themselves, and in embracing them he 
seemed to find entire consolation. The forces of 
the law had conveyed themselves out by wagon, 
and as they rattled briskly back with their prisoner 
neighbors swarmed out of their houses to see the 
sight. Nothing could be more to Bill s liking, 
He shouted to every one he saw, in loud, exultant 
tones, saying that he was arrested, and he held his 
shackled wrists up to view that no portion of his 
glory might be overlooked. 

Once they met a man driving the other way 
Abner Elkins, in fact. Abner pulled up in aston 
ishment, and was minded to make inquiry. Par 
ticularly, what was Bill arrested for ? 

And Bill hadn t the remotest notion. 

"Is it for robbin* old Gothard ?" asked Abner, 
bluntly. 

" Y gorry, you ll have to ask the boss here!" 
Bill replied, lightly, as if that were a detail of no 
concern to him. 

The sheriff had kept his own counsel pretty 
strictly, and nobody in Atro City was expecting 
them when they rattled in and drew up at the 
county jail; but the first sight of the party set the 



A Knight in Denim 

word flying, and it flew like fire in flax, so that a 
considerable crowd gathered and saw Bill alight. 
He was in ecstasies. These villagers he was used 
to consider a different race of beings, with interests 
apart, and to behold them jostling one another in 
order to have a look at him was enough to fill his 
bosom with that whereby he fairly reeled. Never, 
perhaps, had his vanity been so inordinately 
heightened. 

"Y gorry, who d V thunk it!" he cried out, 
again and again, and was radiant. 

They gave him his arraignment at once, and that 
constituted a fresh triumph. All about him in the 
stuffy little offices of the justice of the peace were 
people bent on seeing him and hearing him faces 
everywhere, and not a face which wasn t regarding 
him in wonder. How should not the egotist as 
sume a lordly air and hold up his head like a con 
queror ? He hearkened to the reading of the infor 
mation, and while its import might well be lost on 
him, that did not much matter in his view; at least 
he could catch the sound of his own name not Bill 
Harbaugh, mind you, but William Harbaugh and 
conceive himself exalted among the great of earth. 

It was part of his exaltation to fancy he had to be 
very much on his guard. 

"Do you plead guilty or not guilty?" inquired 
the justice. 



A Knight in Denim 

Bill eyed him craftily. "Now, who mout you 
be ?" he demanded, and the room tittered. 

The justice, doubtless divining in some measure 
what manner of man he had to deal with, was 
patient and explained the part which devolved 
upon him; and that done he repeated his question: 
"Do you plead guilty or not guilty ?" 

"Not much, Mary Ann!" roared Bill, and the 
tittering grew to laughter not easily checked. 

The crowd s merriment gave his conceit a new 
turn; he was prompted to play the clown and make 
a farce of the solemn proceedings. Have you not 
seen a child so affected by laughter ? 

"Do you wish bail ?" the justice asked. 

Bill broke into a coarse guffaw. "What good s 
a pail thout ary bail ?" 

"I must warn you that you gain nothing by such 
antics," said the justice, severely. 

"We hear ducks!" chuckled Bill. 

"Have you an attorney?" 

"S pose you give a guess. Come, now!" 

The justice put an end to the unseemly show by 
entering a plea of not guilty in the defendant s 
behalf, and remanding him to the custody of the 
sheriff. But Bill s cup of flattery was by no means 
drained. 

The jail was as much of the basement of the court 
house as the sheriff s residence did not occupy, 

176 



A Knight in Denim 

which for the time being was not a great deal. 
Accommodations for an ordinary family were fin 
ished off in the style of a fair to middling dwelling, 
but the sheriff was blessed with a family more than 
ordinary, at least in respect of numbers, so that 
three of the four cells designed for the incarceration 
of malefactors were used to stow children in by 
night and by day for various domestic purposes. 
Bill, the first prisoner to enter those precincts in 
long, was given the odd cell, and he entered it as 
if he were taking possession in fee simple. From 
that moment, in fact, the entire jail was his, not to 
speak of the court-house and other appurtenances. 
During some hours he did nothing but strut up 
and down, offering himself to the public gaze, 
through the grill of the door to the favored few 
who were suffered to enter the corridor, but for the 
most part at the window which opened out on the 
world and might be approached by any one and 
every one. Unlike the Roman actress who was 
content if only a knight applauded her, Bill was 
democratic enough to prefer the staring of the com 
mon crowd to the staring of the select. And what 
with one thing and another, he was the picture of 
perfect enjoyment a soul more thoroughly pleased 
with itself perhaps never breathed. 

Of course that manner of thing could not last 
long; before evening of the first day the curiosity 

177 



A Knight in Denim 

of the villagers was so far sated that only now and 
then a belated straggler came and peered in at the 
grated window. The strain of the heroic pose be 
ing at length broken, Bill found himself most un 
commonly fagged out, gladly retired with the sun, 
and sank at once into slumber so deep that the 
sound thereof frightened the little children in the 
next cell. But he was out of bed bright and early 
next morning, and clamoring for something to do 
*y gorry, he couldn t set round doin nothin , not 
nohow. 

"Hain t ye got ary crops ?" he asked the sheriff, 
anxiously. 

No crops. But there was a pile of cordwood 
needing to be sawed, and though Bill loudly pro 
tested that it was no way to be working up wood in 
summer, the alternative did not present itself, and 
so he fell on, with prodigious energy and good 
spirits. By that he touched the public curiosity 
anew, to the end that numbers came out for to see 
him work. Nothing could stimulate him more. 
He bragged incessantly, but never to the neglect 
of performance, and the pile of cordwood dwindled 
fast, with the pile of stovewood growing accord 
ingly. 

The sheriff stood guard, in easy, lounging fash 
ion. He was himself a villager, as indifferent to 
formalities as his kind are apt to be, more than 

178 



A Knight in Denim 

ready to permit Bill every liberty which by any 
stretch should be compatible with his position. 
And it became steadily more apparent, as the fore 
noon wore on, that watch and ward were not much 
called for escape was about the last thing the 
prisoner was apt to meditate. What condition 
should the egotist prefer to the imprisonment which 
made him a marked man and enlarged his sense of 
his own importance beyond any experience he had 
ever met with ? The sheriff saw how the land lay, 
it was easy for him to be kind, and by mid-day he 
was so far softened as to ask Bill to sit down and 
take dinner with the family. 

And Bill declined, not in any scorn of the hos 
pitality, but as a matter of dignity. " I d otter be 
behind them there bars when I eat my victuals!" 
quoth he. " Twouldn t look right if I wasn t to 
be." 

It was so ordered. Nor was that all. When the 
sheriff, having fetched him his dinner in the cell, 
went away without locking the door, deeming the 
precaution needless, Bill s dignity asserted itself 
once more. 

"Here, d ye lock that there door ?" he called out, 
something sharply. 

"No," said the sheriff, turning back, "I didn t." 

"Better lock it! Twouldn t look right if twas 
to be left onlocked!" said Bill. 

179 



A Knight in Denim 

The sheriff s children were a swarm, and of 
course the coming into their very midst of so rare a 
bird as a prisoner could not help but appeal to their 
imaginations most powerfully. And equally of 
course their first sentiment was profound awe, so 
that they kept at a distance, and only peeped out 
from behind some solid barrier by way of protec 
tion. As often as Bill caught sight of them, he 
spoke to them with coaxing friendliness, and while 
at first his advances served but to turn their awe to 
terror and send them fleeing headlong, his kind 
interest was too genuine not to win them over at 
length. They made but small acquaintance with 
him that first day when he was so busy with the 
public, but the day after, as he worked at the wood, 
they lingered about, and instead of running away 
when he accosted them stood their ground, and 
even rejoined, bashfully. Presently, by easy stages, 
they got on so good a footing that the eldest boy 
fetched out his book of colored pictures to exhibit. 
And when Bill sat down on the sawbuck to look 
at the pictures, they pressed about him in a buzzing, 
eager group. A very little girl was especially anx 
ious to give him the benefit of her comments, so 
much so that she clutched his great, hairy hand in 
her excitement, and was not greatly put out when 
he lifted her on his knee. He knocked off work 
long enough to construct a jumping-jack with 

1 80 



A Knight in Denim 

marvellous loose joints, which he caused to dance 
and kick up its heels by means of a springy barrel- 
stave, and after that there was nobody quite equal 
to Bill, in the eyes of the sheriff s children. 

The sheriff s wife, meanwhile, was coming and 
going about her domestic duties a frail woman 
manifestly overdriven. To her Bill addressed him 
self, waiting for no introduction. 

"Be you alone?" he asked. 

That was an expression well understood house 
wives who had no servants to help them were 
spoken of as being alone. 

"Yes we can t afford to keep a girl," the wo 
man replied, with an appealing sigh. 

They had quite a little talk about the matter, the 
sheriff joining in to explain how it happened they 
were so poor. 

"The new tax law cuts me down about half," he 
said. "Used to be good money in back taxes, but 
not any more." 

When the wood was cut and properly stacked, 
Bill bore the sheriff s wife in mind and busied him 
self helping her, taking over all the lifting and carry 
ing, and whatsoever was rough and heavy. Fur 
thermore, he tended the babies, in famous style. 
At least three of the children were too young to help 
themselves much, and these Bill made his especial 
charge. Every night he sang them to sleep, his 

181 



A Knight in Denim 

egregious discords sending them off to dreamland 
as by magic. 

The sheriff, though it was beyond his province, 
did not scruple to advertise his views concerning 
his prisoner s guilt. 

"Maybe that chap took the money," he was more 
than once heard to say, "but he ain t no thief, no 
more n my two-year-old would be if she was to go 
into the butt ry an help herself to jell!" 



182 



CHAPTER XIII 

ESSIE S apple of delight turned to bitter ashes 
when it was borne in upon her that the money 
Bill gave her had been stolen. Her first intimation 
came from her husband he informed her, curtly, 
that Bill was already under arrest and on his way 
to jail, and that the evidence against him was ab 
solutely final, leaving no doubt whatever of his 
guilt; and the thought which remained with her 
thereupon was almost more than she could bear. 
She did cry out, in spite of herself, and for that 
got a hard, accusing look from Haldean. Did he 
suspect that she had received some of the stolen 
money ? 

But there was worse to come in a moment her 
conscience wakened with a wrench and fairly threw 
it in her face that she had caused Bill to do the 
dreadful deed for which he was now to pay the price. 
It had been on her lips to protest that the simple, 
inoffensive fellow was incapable of doing so vio 
lent and cruel and lawless a thing, and then there 
flashed on her the most distressing thought of all. 
She had not the ground, seek it as frantically as 
she might, whereon to question his guilt; and why 

183 



A Knight in Denim 

was he guilty ? Because of his wish to be useful 
to herself because he was devoted to her service. 
She had made him believe that she stood in sore 
need of money, and for her behoof he had robbed 
old Gothard. That was the charge her conscience 
laid upon her, to wring her heart unto bursting and 
to cause all the pain that had gone before to seem 
cheap and of no account. She recalled the mas 
ter s sneering admonition that she learn to consider 
others and not herself altogether, and how it had 
cut her; yet here was her conduct proving the jus 
tice of it. She had been selfish. She had moped 
and mourned because she could not have what she 
fancied, and by her moping and mourning she had 
set good, faithful, harmless Bill on to be a thief. 

It was a doleful day for Essie. That evening 
the Home Journal came to hand, the first copy 
under the new dispensation; she left it in its 
wrapper unread, so was the apple turned to ashes. 

Her conscience clamored for the easement of 
confession. Kept to herself, her sin were an in 
tolerable, rending thing, fit to drive her mad; freely 
discovered, there was the promise that it might be 
easier to bear at worst it could not be harder. 
The law was as much a mystery to her as it is to 
most women, and so, arguing from her rudimentary 
conceptions of justice, she came into the notion that 
if she were to tell the truth as the truth appeared to 

184 



A Knight in Denim 

her, the effect must be to clear Bill from blame. 
How should a simpleton, guileless in his heart and 
meaning nobody harm, be held responsible, once 
it was known that the impulse to his wrongful deed 
had been supplied by another ? She took all the 
blame to herself absolutely all, to the last feather s 
weight of it. She even pictured herself going to 
jail, and she did not shrink from the prospect. 
Rather did she derive a sombre joy in its contem 
plation the joy of a tender conscience finding ease 
in penance. 

And to whom was she to confess unless her hus 
band ? 

Tudor," she said humbly, "I am to blame for 
what Bill has done. I prompted him to take the 
money." 

She spared herself in nothing, but having opened 
her lips told all: how she had sold berries to pay 
for the Home Journal; how the berries had failed 
by reason of the frost; how she had let herself be 
cast down so visibly that Bill, in the wish to serve 
her and save her, was wrought upon to steal 
everything, in short. Haldean heard her out, but 
he took her disclosure in no such way as she had 
expected. She had expected him to reproach her, 
and he did not. She believed he would be shocked 
and troubled, and instead he was glad, so that he 
chuckled and beamed with pleasure. 



A Knight in Denim 

"Your testimony will add another important 
link to the chain," he remarked, and all but 
laughed outright. 

A terror seized her. "Do you mean 

"I mean that if you saw money in the fellow s 
possession on the day following the robbery, that 
is very good evidence against him very good evi 
dence indeed!" 

"And I shall be called on to testify against him ?" 

"Undoubtedly!" 

"I will not!" exclaimed Essie vehemently. 
"Sooner would I have my tongue torn out by the 
roots!" 

Whereupon he laughed his brutalest. "Courts 
of justice are not affected by melodrama, fort 
unately. They very well know how to deal with 
persons who would sooner have their tongues torn 
out than tell the simple truth." 

She felt her helplessness, and sank down under 
the sense of it. Was she doomed, no matter which 
way she turned, no matter how upright her inten 
tions, always to add to her misery and never to 
lessen it ? Verily, it would appear so, when her 
confession had come to naught but to make her 
the means of furthering a great wrong. 

However, there was light ahead, and presently 
she caught the cheering gleam of it through the 
darkness that encompassed her. Not suddenly, 

1 86 



A Knight in Denim 

though, but rather by the slow process of putting 
two and two together; and the effect was to re 
veal the robbery of old Gothard in a very different 
aspect. 

Haldean, to begin back at the beginning, was 
in all things fastidious. In respect of his clothing, 
particularly, he was so nice as to make himself 
quite the fop he would have nothing but the best 
for his own apparel. Their poverty imposed no 
heavier cross upon him than when it deprived him 
of fine raiment; nothing in his lot was harder than 
the necessity to array himself in a garment either 
worn or of humble quality, though as between these 
two evils the former was the less, in his estimation. 
And there was that, moreover, which the direst 
poverty could not force him to do he would not 
wear a hickory shirt. 

"I ll go naked first!" he vowed, with a great 
oath, and almost he had done so, for the shirts left 
over from the season of prosperity were presently 
worn to shreds and barely held together by dint of 
unremitting mending. 

It was upward of a fortnight after the robbery 
that Essie saw the first of the light. She had been 
too much cast down during these days to have 
much interest in her husband s comings and goings, 
but even so she could not well help but be aware 
when he appeared garbed in a new shirt of the 

187 



A Knight in Denim 

finest linen, and made up in the best style of tai 
loring. Though he was visibly cautious, and kept 
his coat more buttoned than usual, she saw, and 
having seen, was given a shock. She detested 
prying, but the suggestion was such, and it struck 
her so forcibly, that she instituted a quiet search, 
and at the bottom of a drawer which she was not 
much used to looking into she found eleven more 
shirts, likewise new, of fine linen, and in the best 
style. Whereupon her shock was very like the 
shock of conviction. 

Furthermore, sundry matters of memory, lightly 
passed over hitherto, took on a new significance 
now. And chiefly there was the matter of Bill s 
overalls in the wash. How could she ever have 
passed that over so lightly and unsuspectingly ? 

Bill s wardrobe was of the simplest description, 
his overalls were but two pairs in number, and they 
were in the wash alternately, week by week. The 
washing was done of a Monday and the ironing of 
a Wednesday, in the regular order, weather per 
mitting, and Essie had washed and ironed as usual 
the week of the robbery. And she had missed no 
article, so that she was puzzled when, on going to 
give the things their final sorting over on Thursday 
morning, she found Bill s overalls to have been 
washed but not ironed. They were folded up and 
bestowed with evident care among the other arti- 

188 



A Knight in Denim 

cles but, as any practised eye could see, without 
having been ironed. 

And these overalls, in the wash that week, yet 
not in the ironing, were the overalls with the queer 
patch on the knee and the row of small rents 
snagged out by a barbed wire. 

OO J 

And that particular Wednesday night was the 
night of the robbery. 

Still more did Essie recall the light having bro 
ken, it grew brighter and brighter. The wash 
room was a remote apartment, beyond the kitchen 
from the living-rooms, and one of the very few 
occasions when she had seen her husband there 
or thereabouts was that very Thursday morning, 
early, before she made the discovery of the unironed 
overalls. He was coming out of the wash-room, 
and when he met her face to face he saw fit to offer 
a word of explanation. 

"I was looking at the floor it certainly ought 
to be laid new, and that soon," he remarked. 

Essie could remember wondering what had put 
him in mind of the floor all at once. Standing in 
the midst of her new light, it seemed to her incredi 
ble that she had found no more to wonder about. 
How could such transactions go on under a per 
son s very nose yet be not suspected ? 

Nor was even so much all Essie s memory, be 
ing ransacked, yielded yet other matter which she 

189 



A Knight in Denim 

doubted not had its bearing, though for the present 
she could not altogether make out how. It was a 
conversation, which chance had put her in the way 
of overhearing, between her husband and Bill. 
The master s custom had long been to speak to his 
man very seldom, and never otherwise than crustily; 
he could give his dignity at least that satisfaction, 
and though Bill, apart from his inclination to do as 
he chose regardless of orders, was affability itself, 
Haldean made point of being haughty and distant. 

Which made his demeanor on the present occa 
sion noteworthy, and caused Essie to prick up her 
ears, so to say. He was so downright suave that 
she was fairly startled, and could not help listen 
ing, and so her memory was charged, though not 
burdensomely, with the conversation. 

"Bill," said the master ingratiatingly, have 
you ever caught an otter?" 

f&gt; Y gorry, no, cap!" said Bill, showing by his 
manner that he was flattered by the kindly ad 
dresses from an unwonted quarter. 

"I find," Haldean went on, "that there s an 
otter s den in the bank of the creek just beyond 
where the cold spring comes in." 

"Ye don t aim to tell me, cap!" exclaimed Bill 
animatedly. 

"Directly under a clump of golden willows." 
"Y gorry, I know them willers!" 
190 



A Knight in Denim 

"If you watch there as it grows dark, I dare say 
the animal might be killed with a club." 

" Y gorry!" 

"An otter s pelt, you know, is never worth less 
than one hundred dollars, and usually more. A 
choice pelt will fetch five hundred dollars." 

"Five hunderd! Y gorry, I ll go down there 
to-night! I ll go down an* see bout Mister Otter 
to-night, y gorry!" 

Bait for gudgeons, evidently as little informed 
as was Essie, in the premises, she perceived that 
here was bait thrown out for some ulterior purpose. 
And Bill, in his simplicity, had swallowed it, his 
guileless heart completely won by a few pleasant 
words. Essie distrusted the transparent contriv 
ance and the purpose which her husband might 
have in it, even though she did not understand how 
very clumsy a contrivance it was, how absurdly 
incompatible his proposals were with the habits of 
an otter, the shyest and for many years the rarest 
of animals. But the worst she could make of it at 
the moment was that Haldean intended playing 
off some sort of a joke on Bill to humiliate him; 
and while she resented anything so graceless, she 
felt no call to thrust herself into the business, espe 
cially in the view that her interference might easily 
do more harm than good. She considered, with a 
pang of pity, that Bill was not too wise to be sent in 

191 



A Knight in Denim 

hot pursuit of a gargoyle s burrow or a unicorn s 
nest, and she keenly felt the wrong of making game 
of his deficiencies, but on the whole it seemed the 
better part to do nothing about it. 

Once more it was the day of the robbery the 
conversation took place in the afternoon and the 
robbery after nightfall; but she did not straight 
way connect the two. In point of fact, what with 
the robbery itself and the turmoil it created, and 
the windfall of particular appeal to herself whereby 
she was permitted to have her paper once more, 
there was plenty which should serve, if not to drive 
the lesser incident out of her mind, at all events 
to crowd it back and get it overlooked. Not till 
a fortnight had passed, and the dozen fine linen 
shirts had put her in the way of searching her 
memory, did she recollect the singular colloquy. 

What did it signify ? 

She saw only as through a glass darkly, but at 
least there stood, plainly and not to be blinked, the 
fact that the clump of willows beyond the cold 
spring was in the near vicinity of Gothard s cabin. 
Had Haldean cooked up the yarn about the otter 
to inveigle Bill down into that quarter, in order that 
he might, perchance, be seen going or coming, and 
so be the more open to suspicion ? 

Essie had no doubt of her duty; it pointed her to 
a thorny path, but it pointed her unequivocally, and 

192 



A Knight in Denim 

she did not shrink. Justice, in so far as it waited 
upon her, should be done, though the heavens fell 
and buried her in their wreck. "God help me!" 
she prayed. 

What she had to do was hardly to be done se 
cretly, and to tell the truth she had no stomach for 
concealment any more. And accordingly, having 
changed her workaday dress for something a little 
better, she set forth, in broad day, and before her 
husband s face. 

"Where now?" he demanded, in the tone of 
challenge, as if he were a sentry set over her. 

His manner, with all it implied, touched her 
temper and so lessened her stomach for conceal 
ment that she was near to avowing her whole pur 
pose and everything that lay behind it. But had 
she the right to make so free with the information 
that had come to her ? She bethought herself be 
fore she spoke and decided that she had not. "I 
am going to Atro City I shall be back in time to 
prepare supper," she replied. 

But even with all her reservations, she was let 
ting herself be seen in an aspect quite new to 
him, and his bearing showed that his consciousness 
thereof was mingled with resentment. How dared 
she ? 

That is far to walk!" he remarked, and his 
voice was not the voice of solicitude. 

193 



A Knight in Denim 

"Oh, no! I ve walked much farther and called 
it fun." 

Her coolness stung him and his face hardened. 
"I dare say I have no right to ask what may be 
taking you to Atro City?" 

She kept silence. 

"What if I were to forbid you ?" he snarled, with 
sudden fierceness. 

"It were better you did not!" she made answer 
quietly. 

"You make yourself ridiculous, running after 
that drivelling idiot!" he flung out. 

Again she kept silence. He was angry enough 
for almost anything, and she quaked for a little 
with the fear lest he lay violent restraint upon her; 
but he refrained from measures so desperate, and 
she went as she would. 

Her errand at Atro City was not, as the master 
supposed, with Bill, in jail, but with the justice of 
the peace, whom she found alone in his office and 
who with brisk gallantry put himself at her service. 
To him she communicated, without reserve, the 
light which had come to her relative to the robbery 
of the hermit. It was no easy task Essie was fully 
alive to the obligations of conjugal loyalty, even 
where love has ceased to sanctify them, and it cost 
her a great effort to testify as she was testifying; 
but she held back nothing and glossed nothing over. 

194 



A Knight in Denim 

The justice heard her out and shook his head. 
"The evidence against the man under arrest is very 
strong very strong indeed!" he observed. 

"But don t you see! It is made up there is no 
truth in it!" she protested, dismayed to find him 
so sceptical. 

Only the more did the magistrate shake his head. 
"If I understand you, madam," said he, "it would 
not be possible to bring the circumstances which 
you have related to the attention of a jury. I 
have to advise you that they would not be legally 
admissible as evidence." 

"Oh, sir " 

"The only proof of them is your own word ?" 

"Doyoudoubt- 

"Not at all, madam! But the law expressly 
provides that a wife may not testify against her 
husband unless he permits her to do so." 

Essie crept back home with a guilty sense of 
being almost glad that she was not suffered to play 
the tremendous part which she had marked out 
for herself guilty, because she saw not how else a 
cruel injustice was to be prevented. 



195 



CHAPTER XIV 

BILL had no means wherewith to hire a lawyer, 
and so the court, in accordance with the 
statute made and provided, designated counsel to 
plead his cause. The defendant could not justly 
complain that his poverty put him at a disadvan 
tage in that respect far from it. On the contrary, 
it was a tradition of the bar that any member, 
though he should be the ablest, was to take it as a 
compliment when he was designated to such ser 
vice, and was in an especial sense bound to do his 
best. A fixed fee of ten dollars measured the ex 
tent of the material compensation, and of course 
that was the merest trifle, as fees went; but in 
view of what tradition and the honor of the profes 
sion demanded, no defendant was the worse off for 
having his lawyer appointed unto him by the court. 
But here and now peculiar obstacles presented 
themselves, and not least among them Bill s own 
attitude toward the prosecution. The amount of 
it was that he liked being prosecuted, whereas the 
notion of being acquitted, as it presented itself to 
his mind, was distasteful. It suited him very well 
to be looked upon as a malefactor his vanity had 

196 



A Knight in Denim 

never been so opulently fed. The law s stern dis 
pleasure appealed to him, for the present, as a very 
good thing, and the pains and penalties which the 
future held over his head were as nothing. What 
cared he for the threat of hard labor in the peniten 
tiary, even though it should endure for five years, 
or ten throughout the rest of his life, for that 
matter ? He formed no conception of the peniten 
tiary further than that it was certain to bestow 
more distinction, and the egotist in him, unfet 
tered by prudence, would esteem no price too great 
to pay for distinction. 

The lawyer s most formidable task was to win 
the sympathy of his client a curious situation; 
and what was most curious, with all his arts he 
never won it. Indeed, the more he labored to that 
end the more he got himself distrusted Bill would 
have none of him and his kindly purpose. By 
way of last resort, having tried every other expedi 
ent he could think of, he held up the disgrace of 
having to wear the prison garb, how like a brand 
on the forehead it was. 

"See here, Bill!" he argued. "You don t want 
them putting stripes on you!" 

"Stripes!" repeated Bill interestedly. "What s 
them?" 

The lawyer had brought along a picture to give 
force to his representations it showed exactly what 

197 



A Knight in Denim 

the prison garb was like. And Bill was quite fas 
cinated gazed upon the badge of infamy with 
dancing eyes. 

Y gorry, I d like to wear them there!" he pro 
tested, ardently, and was more than ever opposed 
to being acquitted. 

Naturally enough, what with all his obstinacy 
in resisting measures plainly taken in his behoof, 
his sanity was presently called in question, and he 
came rather near getting himself adjudged a luna 
tic not responsible for what he did. A commission 
of experts gave him a thorough overhauling and 
they discovered plenty which made him out to be 
not as other men are; but a person might be much 
of a freak and still be answerable. Moreover, a 
mysterious instinct seemed once more to put Bill 
on his guard, to warn him that they were seeking 
to do with him something which he did not wish 
done, and the commission were astonished at the 
shrewdness he displayed on occasion plenty of 
men accounted entirely sound of mind would have 
been less shrewd under similar tests. And finally, 
letting a robber off on the plea that he knew not 
what he did was a proceeding to think twice about, 
so nearly did it touch the very fundaments of pub 
lic order. In short, Bill was officially pronounced 
sane, which meant that he would have to stand trial. 

Nothing could be more to his liking. The trial 
198 



A Knight in Denim 

marked the culmination of his glory, when his head 
smote the stars. 

It was replete with singularities, beginning with 
the very entrance of the prisoner, for he came up 
to the bar in irons, and as if that were not enough, 
the sheriff marched behind with a drawn pistol. 
Of course all such precaution was wholly uncalled 
for, but it pleased Bill because it made the world 
gasp and stare and even shiver at the suggestion 
that a very desperate character was being dealt 
with. The sheriff looked a bit foolish, to tell the 
truth boyish make-believe was foreign to his 
temper; but Bill was vastly puffed up. It was a 
coarse sort of food wherewith to feed an ordinary 
vanity, but Bill s vanity was not ordinary it was 
the vanity of an elemental egotist, and never dainty. 
And the sheriff, on his part, had conceived a great 
liking for his uncommon prisoner, and a wish to 
gratify him even at the cost of playing a part which 
should cause himself embarrassment. The irons 
had been put on at Bill s instance he pointed out 
the impropriety of a man in his position being 
taken out in public without them; but the pistol 
was the sheriff s own touch, a free will offering, as 
it were. Y gorry!" cried Bill, at sight of the 
weapon, and for the rest was speechless with pride. 

And inevitably there was further singularity 
growing out of the lack of sympathy between the 

199 



A Knight in Denim 

prisoner and his counsel. Bill s distrust of the law 
yer s purposes had grown until it wasn t far short 
of open hostility. It was usual for attorney and 
client to consult together, in whispers, as the trial 
proceeded, but Bill simply would not be whispered 
to in that connection, drawing off suspiciously as 
often as the attempt was made. Certainly that 
was far from what counsel had a right to expect, 
and before long his patience was so exhausted that 
he rose and asked the court for leave to withdraw 
from the case. 

"I don t see how I can go on, your honor!" he 
protested, pretty red in the face. "My client per 
sistently withholds his confidence from me, and 
whether that is his fault or mine, the fact equally 
unfits me to represent him properly." 

The judge asked Bill if he desired a different 
attorney. 

"You re the doctor, I reckon suit yourself!" 
was the defendant s reply, delivered with a ridicu 
lous air of condescension. 

"Your honor," put in the lawyer, "strange as 
it may seem, I get the impression that the man 
doesn t wish to be cleared." 

The remark offered too good an opening for 
the prosecutor, across the table, to miss. "Your 
honor," observed that functionary, with mock 
gravity, "if the defendant doesn t wish to be cleared 

200 



A Knight in Denim 

I suggest that he cannot possibly make more satis 
factory arrangements as to counsel. * 

The sally provoked a great laugh, and no laugh 
ter was so loud as Bill s. The point of wit was 
utterly beyond him, but none the less he guffawed 
boisterously, winked at the prosecutor, nodded to 
the jury, and altogether showed himself hugely 
pleased. There was no further discussion of the 
situation openly, only a short conference, in a low 
voice, among the judge and the two lawyers, after 
which counsel for the defence resumed his place. 
But if he did not withdraw from the case, his per 
sonal relations with the prisoner were at an end. 

The trial was short; the first day saw a jury 
empanelled and the prosecution s evidence all 
submitted; and when adjournment came and the 
crowd poured out, the end was thought to be very 
near. So far as animated discussion could dis 
cover, though it engaged the whole community and 
was prolonged half through the night, the defence 
hadn t a leg left to stand on, and if there wasn t 
a verdict before another noon it would be surpris 
ing. What the verdict would be, no man doubted 
Bill was already as good as convicted. 

"Saltpetre won t save him!" declared the com 
mon sentiment, meaning by such homely imagery 
to describe a plight quite hopeless. 

Old Gothard was the main witness for the pros- 

2OI 



A Knight in Denim 

ecution unwilling to the last degree, struggling 
pathetically to soften his testimony, but carrying 
withal a power of conviction not to be resisted. 
His very reluctance contributed to the force of 
the evidence which, drawn from him bit by bit, 
amounted at last to confirmation strong as the pro 
verbial proofs of Holy Writ. A glib and willing 
witness could not have had half the effect. 

The hermit, it appeared from his disjointed 
story, had been sitting by his candle the evening 
of the robbery, absorbed in reading and thinking 
no harm, when all of a sudden, and without a rustle 
of warning, a pistol was thrust in his face and a 
voice at his very ear commanded him to give up 
his money. He did not in the least demur old 
Gothard raised a laugh by his quaint avowal of 
how ready the pistol rendered him to do as he was 
bid; the money was in an old battered teapot, and 
the teapot, so far from being hidden, stood in plain 
sight on the shelf, where he promptly pointed it 
out, and thereupon fainted away. 

Why had he fainted ? 

The hermit did not know, unless it should be for 
fright. He was badly scared. "Mine heart he 
vas yoomp up here!" he sputtered, clutching at his 
throat, and raised another laugh. 

It wasn t a blow which rendered him insensible, 
then ? 

202 



A Knight in Denim 

There was no blow it pleased old Gothard to 
swear that there had been no blow, as if by that he 
should lessen the offence. Since the implacable 
law would not suffer him to forgive the trespass, 
there was the more joy in extenuating it. 

Was the robber s voice like any voice he knew 
or was much accustomed to hear ? 

No, it was a strange voice very low, like a growl. 

Purposely disguised ? 

Very likely as soon as the hermit was made to 
understand what these words of the lawyer s meant, 
he readily assented to the suggestion that the voice 
had been purposely disguised. 

But the hardest part for him was when they held 
up Bill s overalls for him to identify. Fairly he 
broke down. "I forgeef him!" he cried, with a 
beseeching look at the judge. But they insisted 
that he tell the truth notwithstanding, and so he 
faltered out that those were the overalls the robber 
had worn he knew them well and could not be 
mistaken. "I vish I should be mistooken!" he 
groaned dolefully. 

He was asked about the pistol, too. What had 
it been like ? 

Very bright, and the handle was white. 

They held up the sheriff s pistol was it like 
that? 

No, different more bright, and the handle was 
more white. 

203 



A Knight in Denim 

They had another pistol, and the prosecutor 
stepped forward and thrust it as close to old Goth- 
ard s face as the robber had been described as do 
ing. There was no doubt about it. "Dose vas 
de rewolwer!" declared the witness positively, and 
with visibly less of reluctance, perhaps in the view 
that fire-arms, and especially fire-arms of so ele 
gant a character, were something totally foreign 
to Bill. 

The pistol, as transpired directly, was Hal- 
dean s. The master of Throstlewood took the 
stand and made oath not only that the pistol was 
his, but that he had missed it from its usual place 
the night of the robbery. 

How had he come to miss it ? 

His custom was to sleep with the weapon under 
his pillow, and when he went to get it from the 
drawer, where it was kept by day, it was gone from 
there. 

Had he made a search for it ? 

He had, but without finding it that night. 

When had he found it ? 

Next day. 

And where ? 

In the drawer where it belonged. 

Had the defendant knowledge of the pistol s ex 
istence and of where it was kept ? 

Of its existence, yes the witness had himself 
shown the pistol to the defendant; as to whether 

204 



A Knight in Denim 

the defendant knew where the pistol was kept, the 
witness could not say. 

To Haldean s testimony Bill had given particular 
attention listening with dropped jaw, in fact; and 
just here he burst out in a way that startled the 
room. 

"Go it, cap!" he bawled, and slapped his knee 
jubilantly. 

Nor did he immediately subside, though sternly 
commanded by the judge, but kept chuckling to 
himself as long as the master remained on the 
stand, with nods and winks interspersed. Hal- 
dean, on his part, betrayed no feeling, but bore him 
self with all the dignity of conscious superiority. 

Old Gothard was not the least willing witness. 
Essie had been summoned by writ to come and 
testify, and she was awaiting her turn with a sick 
heart. They called her next after her husband, 
and she was so wrought upon by her emotions that 
she could barely totter forward to the desk, while 
her assent to the oath was no more than an inartic 
ulate gasp. "Do you solemnly swear to tell the 
whole truth and nothing but the truth ?" they 
demanded of her, and how should it not seem a 
mockery when the little of truth the law would let 
her tell was to be employed in support and fur 
therance of a cruel injustice. 

There fell a stillness unlike anything yet when 
205 



A Knight in Denim 

she took the stand. People leaned forward and 
stretched their necks, wishful to miss no word of 
what the woman had to say. They could see how 
profoundly reluctant she was, so that she trembled 
and went white as a sheet, and her evident distress 
was not likely to make them less eager. Quite 
conceivably they scented a scandal, and awaited 
revelations which should give them another glimpse 
of the family skeleton already more than once dis 
cerned. Anyway, they stretched their necks and 
were very still. 

Did the witness (it was the prosecutor asking) 
know the defendant, William Harbaugh ? 

She knew him. 

Could she recall having seen him on the day after 
the robbery ? 

She could. 

Had she observed anything unusual about the 
defendant that day ? 

She had. 

Would the witness tell the court and the jury, in 
her own words, what it was that she had observed ? 

Simply that the defendant had a sum of money 
in his possession. 

He was not used to have money, then ? 

No very unused. 

Had she never seen him with money before ? 

Very seldom; never except now and then when 
206 



A Knight in Denim 

he had sold something for her and was bringing 
her the proceeds. 

Essie was frank wishing to be done quickly 
with that which she had to do, she forced herself 
to be frank; but the effort cost her something. 
That was shown by the way she pressed her hands 
together, as if by the straining of her muscles she 
would control her feelings. And, after all, her feel 
ings were at length too much for her. "Oh, oh! 
It s such a monstrous wrong!" she whimpered, 
and the tears splashed down her cheeks. She was 
very near to breaking down utterly. 

Bill straightway let his voice be heard, and now 
it wasn t lifted up in merriment. "Don t cry, 
Essie!" he called to her, as if it were the grief of a 
child he sought to soothe. 

It was a tense moment, and people scarcely 
breathed as they waited for what might be next. 
Were they glimpsing the skeleton ? And was it to 
be yet more plainly visible ? They glanced at Hal- 
dean and beheld an ominous cloud of blackness on 
his brow for once the dignity of conscious superi 
ority failed him. But that was all. The sheriff 
broke the spell, banging with his gavel to call Bill 
to order. Essie mastered herself and shortly left the 
stand, and a little later court adjourned for the day. 

Amply enough had appeared, however, to indi 
cate something seething beneath the surface, some- 

207 



A Knight in Denim 

thing that pressed hard to come up, and people 
could indulge the hope that the show was not at 
an end, even though the outcome of the trial, so 
far as the verdict was concerned, should be in no 
doubt whatever. In that view they came flocking 
back next morning, and packed the court-room full 
to the point of suffocation, putting themselves to 
no end of inconvenience. And they were well 
repaid, for affairs had taken an astonishing turn 
over-night. 

It was the defendant s day, though destined to 
be less glorious, and the first thing his counsel did 
was to recall old Gothard and fix the time of the 
robbery. The hermit was in a position to be ex 
act as to that point, for it happened that he had sat 
facing the clock as he was negotiating with the rob 
ber about the money, and in spite of the distrac 
tion he was made aware, perhaps by the operation 
of an independent faculty born of habit, that the 
hands indicated five minutes past eight: a picture 
of the face of the clock at that instant was stamped 
on his memory, in fact. Could the hour by any 
chance have been as early as seven ? No impos 
sible! Could it have been as late as nine? No, 
no never! Asked if his clock might not have 
been an hour fast or an hour slow, Gothard lost 
his temper and delivered himself roundly, albeit 
incoherently, in defence of the accuracy of his 

208 



A Knight in Denim 

timepiece; he had brought it from the old country 
with him, and who did not know that Swiss clocks 
were true as the sun ? 

But the sensation came with the testimony of 
another old German a certain PfafF, heavy and 
stupid, but thoroughly honest, and once started in 
the path of duty no more to be deflected than an 
avalanche. He was very near never getting started, 
for so exceedingly heavy and stupid was he that he 
had attended the proceedings of the previous day 
without its dawning on him, till near night, that 
he knew anything pertinent to the issue. A miss 
is as good as a mile, however the avalanche was 
seasonably in motion, in spite of the delay, and 
carrying all before it. 

Did he remember the evening of the robbery ? 

He did. 

Had he seen the defendant that evening ? 

He had. 

Would he tell the court and the jury the circum 
stances, where and when he saw the defendant ? 

He would, and did, in such wise as incidentally 
to contribute to the gayety of nations. "I lose 
mine cow, and I go look for him by the creek 
around. I find Bill by the creek around, too. 
Vat you do? I say to him once. I hunt for a 
otter, he say. A otter ? I say. A otter," he say. 
I laugh on him and I tell him dere iss no otter. He 

209 



A Knight in Denim 

tell me dere iss a otter and he vill get his skin and 
sell him maybe for fife hund tollar. Yoost like 
dot he say. I laugh on him some more. Dere 
iss no otter and his skin in summer iss not fife cents 
vort/ I tell him. I say to him he should come mit 
me home, mein frau haf make pumpernickel, and 
Bill he come mit me home." So much speaking 
in English all at once was toilsome business for 
Pfaff, and he mopped his face ludicrously with a 
big red handkerchief. 

Could he remember how long the defendant was 
at his house on that occasion ? 

That he could it was two hours, anyway. 

From about when till about when ? 

It couldn t have been much after seven when 
they arrived it wasn t fairly dark yet. 

Could he swear, bearing in mind the solemnity 
of the oath, that the defendant was at his house at 
five minutes past eight ? 

He could, and did, vehemently. "So hellup me, 
Gott!" he exclaimed, and held up his hand. 

PfafF was borne out, moreover, by the testimony 
of his wife, a rosy little dumpling of a woman, who 
couldn t open her lips, but they broke away from 
her, so to speak, and formed themselves into a 
smile so gorgeous and melting that no solemnity 
was proof against it. Mrs. PfafF laughed as she 
testified, and had everybody laughing with her; 

210 



A Knight in Denim 

but she was just as sure as her husband that Bill 
had been at their house at five minutes past eight 
of the evening of the robbery. 

"It vas for the pumpernickel he vas like to come 
all the time!" she declared proudly. 

So Bill had to be acquitted after all. The 
prosecutor did his utmost to impugn the alibi by 
intimating a possible confusion of sun time with 
standard time; but inasmuch as the two differed 
by less than fifteen minutes, and the alibi had a 
leeway of nearly an hour in either direction, his 
showing came to nothing. 

People generally were dazed, but nobody quite 
so much so, it would appear, as Bill himself. He 
was incredulous, in fact, and had to be told several 
times over that he was not guilty. And what was 
perhaps the crowning singularity of all these sin 
gular proceedings, he manifested every sign of being 
disappointed and aggrieved. Mrs. Pfaff, all glow 
ing with smiles, was prompt to descend upon him 
with her felicitations, and he fairly waved her off. 

"Ye don t ketch me to your house ag in very 
soon!" he sniffed, with a sullen frown. 

"Ach, Bill, the pumpernickel!" she exclaimed, 
with benignity all unruffled. 

"Pumpernickel or no pumpernickel!" growled 
Bill, and his disgruntlement, for the moment at 
least, was very real. 

211 



CHAPTER XV 

HALDEAN, likewise, was disappointed. Es 
sie had come away when her testimony was 
given, fearing the worst and unspeakably wretched, 
her mind a whirl of conflicting impulses; and it was 
from her husband that she first learned about the 
verdict. Because Haldean, coming home after the 
trial was over, let his chagrin be seen, she knew 
that Bill had been acquitted. 

But the master was not altogether silent. "I 
dare say we shall have that booby back here di 
rectly!" he snarled. 

And by that she was given a fresh pang in the 
midst of her uplift. Should they indeed have him 
back ? She was doubtful after all that had come 
to pass she could not do otherwise than doubt. 
Perhaps she credited the booby with too much sen 
sibility when she conceived that he must know, in 
some degree, how ill he had been dealt with, but 
so she conceived, nevertheless, and found small 
ground for indulging the hope that he would come 
back and be to her what he had been. 

Haldean read her thoughts they were never 

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A Knight in Denim 

hard to read when they ran so strongly. "You are 
lonely without him!" he sneered. 

She was. She chose not to reply to her hus 
band s taunt, and she shut her thoughts more 
strictly within her bosom, commanding her 
countenance; but she was lonely without Bill. 
And when she looked forward, as in candor she 
needs must, to being without him henceforth, her 
heart was heavy indeed. A little while ago and 
she had asked for nothing more than that he be 
not visited with the crime of which another was 
guilty; but now, with that peril averted, she was 
far enough from being content it might be un 
reasonable, but whether or no she was not content. 

And Bill, meanwhile ? 

His arrest, with all its tumult of unwonted emo 
tions, had torn him quite loose from his moorings, 
and when he tied up again it was at a different 
wharf altogether. The jail, in other words, was 
hereupon as thoroughly his jail as Throstlewood 
had ever been his farm, and as between a jail and 
a farm the advantage of novelty was all in favor 
of the former. The sheriff s overworked wife and 
her brood of helpless babies afforded him the suf 
ficient exercise of his knightliness in short, Bill 
had never in his life been better suited. The 
sight of Essie called to testify against him and 
struggling pitifully with her feelings may well have 

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A Knight in Denim 

given him, in his vague, indeterminate way, a 
divided sense of duty; yet when the trial was over, 
and court adjourned, and the crowd departed, he 
still lingered with the sheriff. To that wharf was 
he moored how was he to cast off and put to sea 
of his own motion ? 

It is not often, probably, that an officer of the 
law is embarrassed by the unwillingness of a pris 
oner to be let go. 

"Better snap on them there cuffs, boss!" Bill 
remarked, holding out his wrists. Twouldn t 
look right, me goin* back thout em. * 

There was anxiety in his eyes a lurking fear; 
he was dimly aware that something had happened 
to rob him of his distinction, otherwise he would not 
have reproached the Pfaffs so; but he would fight 
his fear, and stand out for the better part for that 
he was holding out his wrists for the shackles. 

"No, Bill," answered the sheriff gently, for he 
understood how it was and he would not be harsh 
for the world. "I can t put the cuffs on you any 
more. You re not guilty, you know the jury says 
you re not guilty, and you re a free man." 

He tried to affect a joyfulness, but it was uphill 
business, with Bill so utterly crestfallen all at once; 
and he hadn t the heart to say further that a de 
fendant who had been acquitted in due form could 
not longer be kept in jail. Instead of that the 

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A Knight in Denim 

kindly sheriff invited his whilom prisoner to take 
dinner with the family. 

" Sit down to the table with the folks, just for this 
once!" he urged, when Bill wanted to be locked in 
his cell as usual, and Bill consented, uneasily, with 
the fear hard pressing him. 

The youngest of the babies was uncommonly 
fretful that day, and Bill took him from the dis 
traught mother and soothed him to sleep in his 
great, brawny bosom, singing discordantly. He 
didn t much enjoy his dinner, but he was tolerably 
happy getting the baby to sleep it took his atten 
tion off his own uneasiness. The sheriff and his 
wife exchanged glances over the head of their queer 
guest, and the woman s lips quivered. She, too, 
would be lonely without Bill. 

And if his had been a lesser mouth to feed, they 
might have kept him, for all it might be irregular 
perhaps to maintain the fiction of locking him 
up during an indefinite time to come. But the 
acquittal meant that his meals were no longer a 
charge on the public purse, and with the new tax 
law cutting fees in two or worse, the sheriff had to 
look narrowly at his expenses. 

"Come, Bill!" said he. "Let s take a ride out 
in the country it ll do you good after being cooped 
up so long." 

"What fer ?" said Bill, his anxiety all awake. 
215 



A Knight in Denim 

"Well, for instance!" laughed the sheriff. 
"Don t you want to see how the crops come on ? 
They re fine, I tell you!" 

Bill let himself be persuaded less by the sher 
iff s representations, perhaps, than by the growing 
realization of his own position. The children were 
somehow apprehensive that their great and good 
friend was to be taken from them, and raised 
difficulties, and were not to be reconciled until told, 
in so many words, that he would return presently; 
and it may be that he expected nothing less himself. 
But the jail had sheltered him for the last time; 
he went and returned no more, nor cared to return, 
for that matter. 

The sheriff, in point of fact, had cooked up a 
strategy, and it proved entirely successful. They 
drove out past Throstlewood, and at the first sight 
of the neglected fields Bill forgot everything else. 
Neglected they truly were, for not a tap of work 
had been done in them since the day of his arrest. 
Yonder were those very mangel-wurzels which he 
had been so busy with, grown up with weeds until 
there was nothing but weeds to be seen; and they 
were no worse off than the other crops. Bill was 
instantly in a great taking. Without a word or a 
gesture by way of farewell, he sprang out of the 
wagon and started up the slope at a dog-trot. 

Haldean, as it chanced, was sitting on the porch 
216 



A Knight in Denim 

in dignified state, much as he had sat the day of 
Mabel s funeral long ago when Bill first came that 
way. But no such serenity adorned the master s 
brow now. On the contrary, he looked very black 
indeed. 

"Stop!" he called out peremptorily. 

Bill never so much as glanced in his direction, 
while as for stopping he only hurried the faster. It 
was rather a stiff climb, at the rate he was going, 
and it made him puff for breath. 

"That there corn! Hit hed orter been gone 
through two weeks back!" he grumbled to himself. 

"Stop, I say!" thundered Haldean, rising to his 
feet. "No thief is wanted here!" 

But Bill was already out of earshot, in the stable, 
rummaging among the harness, muttering inco 
herently but always in the tone of profound dis 
content. After the lapse of a quarter of an hour or 
such a matter, he emerged with one of the horses 
attached to the cultivator, and forthwith struck into 
the corn in feverish haste. During all the rest of 
the day he went up and down row after row, paus 
ing only when the horse was exhausted and had 
to be let to breathe. And even then he allowed 
himself no interval while the horse stood still he 
pulled weeds with his hands, down on all-fours and 
working like a beaver. 

Essie had been engaged at the back of the house, 
217 



A Knight in Denim 

and she remained in ignorance of Bill s arrival until 
her husband carne with his black brow and told 
her, not with a view to enlightening her merely, but 
for a purpose of his own. 

"I wish," he said harshly, "to have no com 
munication of any sort with the fellow I would 
not so degrade myself. But at the same time I 
insist on his being sent away. You will accord 
ingly send him away, without delay you seem to 
regard it as no disgrace to have dealings with a 
common felon!" 

"But why ?" The words were out of her mouth 
before she thought how uncompliant they would 
sound. She could overlook the taunt which was 
meant for herself, but the protest in Bill s behalf 
would find utterance. 

Haldean answered her in the austere and omi 
nous manner of a prophet. "Lest a worse thing 
befall!" said he, and having so spoken he turned 
on his heel and left her. 

Her first impulse was rebellious enough, but as 
she considered the situation perplexities multiplied 
she saw her way less and less clearly. She went 
to the front window whence she could see the corn 
field, and as she watched Bill laboring so faithfully 
her very soul revolted against being hard with him. 
And yet, all things being taken due account of, 
was it not wisest to send him away ? How should 

218 



A Knight in Denim 

she reflect upon the elements of tragedy here 
gathering and not fear the worst or wish to antici 
pate it ? Essie tried to be reasonable and choose 
the lesser evil. 

Bill toiled away in the field as long as he could 
see, and it was late when at length he entered the 
house. He came in as if he had never been absent 
without especial greeting. 

" Beats all how soft I be ! " he remarked. " Like 
a fat hoss in the spring-time/ 

"You ve been out of the work awhile," Essie re 
joined, with a wan smile. 

He regarded her blankly. Could it be that he 
had forgotten the experience which in the day of it 
had affected him so strongly ? For the time being, 
yes so curiously does memory, the weakest fac 
ulty of weak minds, record its failure. The arrest, 
the trial, the jail, even the needy sheriff s wife and 
her many babies all had fallen away from him 
as the figures of a dream will fall away. 

There was something very pathetic about it, so 
that it wrung Essie s heart. That which she had 
to do was hard, and yet again hard, but she saw 
no alternative. 

"Bill!" 

"Eh?" 

You must leave us you must not stay here!" 

"What s that, now?" 

219 



A Knight in Denim 

"You must go and live somewhere else there s 
no place for you here. It will be better for you. 
We are so poor you won t have enough to eat 
if you stay here." 

She was groping desperately for arguments, for 
pretexts, and it shamed her to think how she in 
sulted his devotion by urging considerations so 
sordid. 

And Bill, did he feel the insult ? Apparently 
not. After the blank look he gave her after she 
spoke about his having been out of the work, he 
fell into the old order of proceeding: washed him 
self at the sink with a great blowing of water; gave 
his face such a rubbing with the towel that it glowed 
ruddy after the similitude of the moon in a fog; 
combed his wet hair up into wonderful fantasies 
before the glass; and at last sat himself down, all 
unruffled. 

"You don t aim to tell me!" quoth he, with polite 
incredulity, and gazed upon her benevolently. 

It was to intimate no disrespect. On the con 
trary, it was in effect to renew his knightly vows, 
and so she understood it; understood that in 
all things would he obey her, save only that one 
thing he would not leave her. She was deeply 
touched. She let him see no tears in her eyes, 
but they were there, nevertheless. As for send 
ing him away, she could do no more about it. 

220 



A Knight in Denim 

She told her husband so. She desired nothing 
so little as to seem defiant, and gladly she would 
have told him that, too; but he wouldn t hear her. 

"Of course you can t send him away! Why? 
Because he is more to you than he ought to be!" 
Haldean exclaimed fiercely, turning on her. 

That was quite the unkindest cut of all, so un 
locked for, so monstrous, that she could scarce be 
lieve she heard aright. " Tudor! Consider what 
you are saying!" 

"I am not blind, madam, though my silence 
hitherto may have led you to believe me so. If you 
are so fond of the fellow that you cannot send him 
away, that is all the more reason why he should go. 
I will attend to the matter myself. It is high time 
I asserted the common rights of a husband!" 

Stung almost beyond endurance though she was, 
she made no reply. It was like being struck in the 
face, and a hot resentment rushed over her, but 
after all the instinct of prudence prevailed. She 
was convinced almost at once that her husband s 
jealousy was a pretence a pretext merely; and 
that being so she should gain nothing by taking him 
seriously except to further whatever ulterior pur 
pose he might have. No doubt he wished her to 
flare up angrily his intimations were too absurd 
to be accounted for otherwise. She kept silence, 
but it made her shiver when she asked herself what 

221 



A Knight in Denim 

the master s purpose could be, for it could be some 
thing very dreadful indeed. On the plea of defend 
ing the sanctity of his home, what might not such 
a man venture to do with a fair warrant of im 
punity ? 

But presently, in the midst of her apprehensions, 
she bethought herself of her power. She perceived 
that the course of events had given her the whip 
hand, so to term it, and she sternly resolved, let 
come what would, to make use of the advantage. 

She had not long to wait for the issue. The 
very next morning, as Bill was leaving the house 
after breakfast, Haldean met him at the door. 

"What are you doing here, sir ?" demanded the 
master roughly, as he might address a disobedient 
dog. 

Bill was gnawing a chew of tobacco off a great 
plug (it was a plug, by the way, which the sheriff 
had given him; the revenues of Throstlewood had 
long since ceased to permit the indulgence, and it 
was not the least of the many testimonies to Bill s 
devotion that he had cheerfully submitted to deny 
himself), and he did not find it convenient to re 
join at once. 

"Did you hear what I told you?" fumed Hal- 
dean. 

"Seems so it muster slipped my mind, cap," Bill 
calmly replied, stowing the plug away in his pocket. 

222 



A Knight in Denim 

"I told you, sir, that no thief is wanted here, and 
by that I meant you you, sir!" 

Essie, standing by, saw it all. To pick a quar 
rel, to goad Bill to violence, if so he might that 
was evidently the master s intent; and she doubted 
not that he was armed. The moment had come 
for her to act. 

"Bill," she said quietly, "I wish you would go 
on about your work. I have something to say to 
Mr. Haldean." 

There was a quality in her tone and bearing al 
together new, and on neither of the men was it lost, 
Bill s countenance, till now as placid as a summer 
morning, took on a look of vague alarm, but he did 
as he was bidden, without parley, and promptly 
vanished. Haldean strove to be very haughty and 
ominous, but he was far from hiding his uneasiness. 

"Tudor," said Essie, as soon as they were alone, 
"we two should understand each other." 

"By all means!" said Haldean, bowing stiffly. 

"It is my request that you molest Bill no fur 
ther!" 

"Indeed!" 

"I must insist upon it!" 

"Ah ? Have you any other requests which you 
insist on ?" 

"It isn t because you believe there has been 
impropriety between him and me that you are so 
anxious to be rid of him." 

223 



A Knight in Denim 

"It is kind of you to inform me as to my own 
motives of course I should never know about them 
otherwise." 

"You are sarcastic! I warn you that you would 
better be honest, if it lies in you to be so." 

"Ha, ha! Pardon me for laughing, but you are 
so amusing I really cannot help it." 

"Tudor, you have done that man wrong 
enough ! " 

"What man, if I may ask ?" 

"You very well know what man!" 

"That idiot?" 

"Call him what you will, he is the soul of good 
ness!" 

"Love is blind, and the guiltier the blinder, I 
dare say. Your rhapsody does not surprise me, 
madam!" 

"That will do, Tudor!" 

"Thank you for apprising me!" 

"I have endured much at your hands, and I 
am prepared to endure still more. But there are 
things which are beyond endurance. I cannot per 
mit you to do Bill further wrong." 

"I don t know what you mean by further wrong. 
Do I wrong him in trying to break up his wretched, 
disgusting intrigue with my wife ?" 

"I will tell you what I mean, Tudor. I mean 
that I know who gave Bill the money which I saw 
in his possession. And I know why it was given 

224 



A Knight in Denim 

to him. The real thief wished to divert suspicion 
from himself, and so he handed over a few dollars 
of his plunder to the simpleton, who knew no better 
than thrust his neck in the noose. I mean further 
that Gothard was not mistaken when he identified 
Bill s overalls. They were Bill s overalls, but Bill 
did not wear them. They were the pair that were 
in the wash that week! Now do you know what 
I mean?" 

The shaft struck home. Haldean turned the 
color of ashes. He essayed to speak, but his voice, 
except for an inarticulate gurgle in his throat, quite 
failed him. Nor was Essie done. 

"It is long, Tudor, since I entertained any illu 
sions as to your character. I know how useless it 
is to appeal to your sense of shame. Nevertheless, 
you ought to be ashamed. Bill is a noble fellow; 
while as for his simplicity, I believe he is not too 
simple to know who robbed Gothard. I believe 
he knows as well as I do, or as you do yourself; 
and what is more, I believe he was willing to go to 
prison in the guilty man s place rather than bring 
disgrace on those he has chosen to serve." 

Haldean walked away without a word, but the 
look he gave her was the look of a wolf brought 
to bay almost he seemed to show his teeth. She 
was chilled, and pretty miserably wondered if her 
whip hand had gained her aught after all. 

225 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE tinker amply looked the part, as the say 
ing goes, for not only were his hair and 
beard conformably unkempt and his clothes rough 
and ragged and stained with various soils, but he 
had furthermore the slouching, shuffling gait of the 
habitual nomad. Whoever sets out to disguise 
himself as a wandering tinker will find that the 
gait presents especial difficulties, and where you 
encounter a tinker who walks like a tinker, you 
may well believe him a tinker indeed. 

But even at that you may be mistaken. 

Throstlewood manor stood open to the evening 
air, and the first any one knew of him he was al 
ready inside and knocking on the jamb with the 
knobby end of his rude stick. "Any umbrellas to 
mend ?" he asked, and his tone was sufficiently 
professional to pass muster. 

Essie glanced up from her work, and instantly 
the color fled her face. 

"Umbrellas to mend?" the tinker repeated, in 
a steady voice. 

"No not to-day," she answered faintly and 
shakily, her voice in marked contrast to his. 

226 



A Knight in Denim 

He had the customary brisk patter, or something 
of the sort. " I can re-cover a worn-out umbrella, 
but I don t pretend to be able to recover a borrowed 
one!" he rattled off. "New ribs, new springs, new 
handles new umbrellas, in short, for half what the 
shopkeeper will ask you. Like the old squaw s 
apron, you know. The old squaw came for a patch 
to mend her apron with, and when they asked her 
how big a patch, she wanted it big enough to go 
all over. Umbresols, bumbershoots any, any um 
brellas to mend ?" he wound up, quite in the gen 
uine manner. Whoever should set out to disguise 
himself as a tinker would have to practise some 
what before he might hope to attain to such per 
fection. 

Essie trembled so that the dishes rattled together 
under her hands. And instead of looking at the 
tinker, after that first startled glance, she kept her 
eyes averted. "Not not to-day!" she faltered, 
and now her voice was dry and husky and alto 
gether strange. 

"Pleasant evening, ma am!" 

No reply. 

"I bid you good-night, ma am!" 

No reply. 

By chance, if chance it could be deemed, he had 
found Essie alone; but as he turned to go, he met 
Bill coming in. They gave each other some sort 

227 



A Knight in Denim 

of a perfunctory greeting, and the tinker slouched 
off down the slope to the road. 

Pears to be right smart of them hoboes round," 
Bill remarked as he came on into the kitchen. 
"Still, I dunno s I m mostly hostile to hoboes. 
Anyway, not like some. Some thinks hoboes is 
wuss n anything, but I druther a heap have ho 
boes than grasshoppers." 

"He wanted to mend umbrellas," Essie rejoined, 
with an effort at indifference. 

Tolerably easy she made out to appear her 
effort was not such as to advertise her agitation. 
Unless you had seen the first of the business, you 
would hardly be given to suspect anything out of 
the way hereupon, and of the first of it Bill was in 
nowise aware. Quite as if the incident were as 
trivial as she would have it seem, he bore himself, 
for the present; but when, a little later, she drew 
a shawl over her head and went forth into the cool 
evening, he went forth too. 

It was no unusual thing for her to do often of 
an evening would she stroll out alone that way. 
Bill understood wherefore understood, at least, 
that it was solitude which she particularly sought; 
and for all that he was a simpleton, he had far too 
much delicacy to intrude upon her, while as for 
dogging her footsteps, he were wholly incapable of 
that, unless, perchance, he deemed it needful for 

228 



A Knight in Denim 

her safety. And how should it ever be needful for 
her safety in those unfrequented regions ? Never 
once, until now, had Bill seen fit to go creeping af 
ter her furtively, at a distance, but never letting her 
out of his sight. Of a truth, something must have 
moved his apprehensions pretty strongly else he 
would never be doing what was so downright in 
delicate. 

Hitherto, on these occasions, it had been the most 
unfrequented regions of all to which she resorted 
invariably she would strike across the pasture 
and climb up through the lonely gorge to the high 
land where the rocks were, some of them big as a 
house. The rocks were in a way her friends, and 
often she would linger with them till it was pretty 
dark so dark that a timid woman would be fright 
ened to find herself abroad alone. Of course Bill 
knew what her way had been, all without spying, 
and as he crept stealthily after her to-night he 
would not fail to observe how markedly she was 
departing from it, taking the contrary direction, in 
fact, so as to keep to the public highway, which she 
had always avoided before. Nor would it escape 
him that she carried herself differently, no longer 
in the aimless, meditative, strolling manner, but 
rather as if she had a definite destination in mind 
and were in more than a little hurry to reach it. 

She hadn t gone so very far, in such fashion, till 
229 



A Knight in Denim 

the tinker, looking altogether another chap in spite 
of having thrown off nothing but the tinkerly air, 
emerged from a clump of hazel just in front of her. 
"Oh, Esther, my Esther!" he cried, in a kind of 
transport. 

She halted at sight of him, and was like a 
reed shaken by the wind. "Edgar, how could 
you!" she wailed, and covered her face with her 
hands. 

"I knew you would come out!" he exclaimed, 
with emotion. "I knew you would come out! 
After all after all!" 

A storm of weeping broke over her. "You 
are cruel!" she sobbed hysterically. "It will be 
so much harder now! Almost it was becoming 
easy 

"Esther! You cannot say that it cannot be 
true! Easy? Never!" 

"It will be harder!" 

He drew near to her, with arms out-stretched, 
but she shrank away from him. "No, no!" she 
protested vehemently. "It is wrong wrong for 
me to be here at all. Oh, why did I come out ?" 

"Shall I tell you why?" 

"Oh, Edgar! will you have no pity for me?" 

"You have come out because you love me, 
Esther. Many waters cannot quench love not 
even the tears of wretchedness." 

230 



A Knight in Denim 

"Don t oh, please don t! I pray you to have 
pity." 

There came a fierceness upon him the suave 
and shuffling tinker had altogether vanished; and 
she cowered before him. "You loved me when 
you married this villain, and you love me still! 
Don t deny it!" he exclaimed almost roughly. 

"We are in the public highway!" 

"It doesn t matter where we are you are mine 
anywhere, everywhere, before all the world, and 
heaven, and hell itself!" 

"Somebody will see us. Do you wish me to be 
disgraced ?" 

"What folly to speak of disgrace after all that 
has happened!" 

"My husband he is from home perhaps he 
will return this way! Oh, Edgar!" 

The man laughed scornfully. "Do you expect 
me to be frightened by the prospect?" 

"At least you should have some consideration 
for me." 

"Very well, then. What would you have me 
do?" 

"Leave me go away and never come back!" 
Her voice went thin with the stress upon it. 

"And that is what you came out to say to me ?" 

"I don t know why I came out, God help me! 
There is nothing else to say!" 

231 



A Knight in Denim 

"I am to believe you content?" 

"I am helpless you cannot help me nobody 
can help me! Leave me to live my life out as best 
I can. Oh, how can you have the heart to make 
harder what was so hard before!" 

"You are not helpless! I am here to prove that 
there is help for you if only you will accept of it." 

"Edgar! do not mock me." 

"Nothing can sanctify a fraud." 

"There was no fraud I made my choice de 
liberately and with knowledge." 

"With knowledge! That you would be a 
drudge?" 

"Nobody foresees misfortune it is not for me 
to complain." 

"You were misled. Your uncle and aunt were 
misled. They believed the miscreant would be 
kind to you. It was nothing but a bargain and 
sale, and when he was false to the terms of the 
contract it became void you were absolved. You 
are not bound either in conscience, in morals, or 
in the lesser law of men." 

"I am bound. I made my choice. I must 
abide by it I must keep the faith!" 

"Never! Do you fancy I have come all these 
hundreds of miles and put myself in this absurd 
disguise simply to talk romantic rubbish ? I ve 
come to take you away with me!" 

232 



A Knight in Denim 

"Edgar! Are you mad ?" 

"No, I am not mad, but I am determined. I 
am determined that you shall not again step across 
that monster s threshold just as you are you will 
go with me! Come, Esther, my own!" 

" Stop! Do you forget that I am the lawful wife 
of another ?" 

"Lawful! By what law, pray? No law can 
bind you to a criminal. Say but the word and you 
are divorced by the law of man. By the law of 
God you were never married!" 

"Whom God hath joined " 

"Blasphemy! Nobody says so but a mumbling 
priest, and he only because he finds the words 
printed in his liturgy. Who dare accuse God of 
joining you to that creature?" 

"For His own purpose He has so joined me. 
In the providence of God not all marriages are 
meant to be happy." 

"You have nothing to regret, then ?" 

"I regret and repent of a hundred misdeeds, and 
by repentance hope to win forgiveness. There is 
no forgiveness for me if I shirk the consequences 
of my own free-will acts." 

"And you think no better of holy matrimony 
than that it should be a purgatory?" 

"It might be worse. You are not generous, or 
you would let me learn resignation. Oh, the utter 
selfishness of that which men call love!" 

233 



A Knight in Denim 

A resentment flamed up in her all at once, and 
for a moment she flashed upon him angrily. But 
when he winced under her reproaches, and betrayed 
in his face the wound her words gave him, she 
broke down afresh and lost all her composure. 
"Oh, Edgar!" she moaned. "If you love me, you 
will be kind- 

"Come, Esther! Come with me!" 

He seized her hand. She struggled to free her 
self, but only feebly, and directly gave over and be 
came quite inert. There was a dumb terror upon 
her, like that of a bird about to sink into the em 
braces of a serpent the terror of a will prostrate. 
It may happen to a woman that no prudence, no 
power of reason, nothing, in short, that she can call 
to her assistance, is sufficient to fortify her against 
that instinct to yield which is the very principle of 
womanhood; and it had happened to Essie. 

But now, of a sudden, there was a great stir in 
the thicket a trampling of heavy feet and a crack 
ing of twigs; and in the next instant Bill burst 
forth. The tinker, in sheer astonishment, let go 
of Essie s hand and started back a step or two. 
Involuntarily, he put himself in the posture of de 
fence, but he had nothing to fear. Bill acted pre 
cisely as if there had been no third person present 
as if he had come upon his mistress alone and 
quite unexpectedly. 

"I was a-lookin for Daisy!" quoth he, in all 
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A Knight in Denim 

seeming innocence, and with the proper simulation 
of mild anxiety. 

Now Daisy was an old turkey which had her nest, 
after the fashion of her kind, hidden away in the 
wild-wood right there was the weak point in Bill s 
pretence, because nobody who was at all informed 
in the premises ever thought of prying into a tur 
key s privacy when she was nesting, lest she be 
prompted to abandon the enterprise in disgust. 
But he hadn t much time in which to perfect his 
invention, to say nothing of his little wit for im 
posture, and so the turkey had to serve. 

"Hain t happened to see Daisy, have ye?" he 
asked, as if nothing else concerned him. 

The tinker, quickly rallying from his astonish 
ment, was not likely, the position being what it was, 
to take kindly to the interruption. "What do you 
want?" he demanded sharply. 

Bill was as if nobody had spoken. 

"Go back and tell the beast who sent you to 
sneak out here go tell him to be a man for once in 
his life and come out himself! Tell him there is 
some one waiting for him who has known him long 
without ever knowing good of him, and who would 
be very pleased to settle two or three old scores! 
Tell him that, and begone!" 

So hissed the tinker, thoroughly incensed. Bill 
pulled a leaf off a poplar sapling and crumpled it 

235 



A Knight in Denim 

to powder between his great thumb and finger. 
"Beats all how dry ev rything s a-gittin , Essie!" 
he observed regretfully. 

Essie, on her part, stood as in a trance, with lips 
stiffly parted and a delirious light in her eyes. 

"Come, Esther!" urged the tinker, all tenderness 
in addressing her, and took a step nearer. 

But now an obstacle intervened, nothing less 
than the gigantic bulk of a certain knight in denim 
come to the rescue of a dame in dismay, if ever 
such dame was. In no warlike fashion, gently, 
but with effect, he took his stand. 

"Hain t agoin home, be ye, Essie ?" he queried. 

Yes, she was going home. In that instant was 
the spell broken and she found herself. She faced 
the tinker composedly. "Good-night, Edgar 
good-night and good-by!" she said, and held out 
her hand. 

There was finality in her manner not to be 
mistaken no fluttering uncertainty any more, but 
steadfast decision. Bill drew off and gave himself 
to the contemplation of the sky. 

" Pears to be a bank in the west, but they do 
say all signs fail in a dry time!" he remarked 
weather-wisely. 

The tinker was altogether subdued. "And I 
am to go away and leave you here, after all ?" 

"It is best, Edgar!" 

236 



A Knight in Denim 

This is to be the end of all my all my 

"Be brave, Edgar! In another world 

"Oh, God!" 

Neither could speak further, but of the two the 
woman was the calmer. She gave him her hand, 
he raised it to his lips and kissed it, and that was 
their parting. A moment more and Essie was 
walking away with Bill. 

And Bill was innocence personified. There was 
a place where the raspberry brambles bordered the 
road, and these furnished him a text to discourse 
on at length. 

"Maybe ye didn t notice," said he, "there s 
somehow consid ble many rosberries, spite of the 
freeze. Dunno s they s nough to be anyways 
wuth pickin , prob Iy they hain t, prob ly they re 
too scat rin , but they s rosberries all the same, 
consid ly many of em. Beats all how ary rosberry 
could go through that there big freeze an not 
be teetotally bumsquatulated, as the feller said. 
Still, I dunno but that s mostly the way it goes 
with them there calamities, as ye might say. 
Somehow they don t never turn out so goshfired 
bad as we think. There ll most gen ly be suthin 
saved, even if tain t nothin but a broomstick. 
Even hail! Y gorry, hain t nothin so bad s hail, 
I cal late, a-poundin* an a-slammin ev rything 
down into the ground. Ever see corn hailed in ? 

237 



A Knight in Denim 

Now, there s calamity for ye, I say! An still it 
don t never turn out so bad s ye d think, not 
nohow." 

Once she faltered. At the first turning of the 
way she paused and looked back. But the tinker 
was gone, and the road was empty, and night was 
settling fast, and she heaved a rending sigh and 
went on. 

The house was lighted up as they drew near, 
showing that Haldean had returned; and Bill, with 
knightly delicacy, left her to go in alone. When 
he had tarried outside awhile he went in, too. 

All was pretty much as if nothing had happened. 
The woman sat by the lamp with the Home Jour 
nal opened out on her lap. 

"What s into the paper this week, Essie?" in 
quired Bill, and listened intently while she read 
aloud about books and art. 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE deadliness of wild parsnip is a tradition. 
The weed may spring up almost anywhere, 
and some declare that if garden parsnip chance to 
be left in the ground to go its way, it will hearken 
to the call of the wild and revert to its ancestral 
traits and be as poisonous as any. But whether 
that be so or not, tradition will quote you instances 
not a few of husbandmen who have turned up the 
tempting root with their ploughs, have eaten of it, 
and have shortly died. 

Bill had been ploughing that day, and when Es 
sie heard him moaning in the night she thought 
of wild parsnip, being acquainted with the tradi 
tion. 

Undeniably, he was foolhardy in respect of the 
things he would eat she thought of that, too. His 
custom was, if he found a strange berry in the. 
woods straightway to put it in his mouth to try its 
taste, and if he fancied it, he ate of it freely, never 
stopping to ask if it might be injurious. Like 
wise with barks and roots and leaves whatsoever 
caught his eye. It would be very like him to eat 
the wild parsnip his plough turned up. 

239 



A Knight in Denim 

He could boast, with good right, that nothing he 
ate ever hurt him. It was a common exploit of 
his to chew poison-ivy. Taint sasphrilly, but 
it s some the same," he would aver, and profess to 
like the perilous stuff. He was never known to 
experience the least inconvenience from his fool- 
hardiness. The truth was, no doubt, that he had 
the constitution of an ox, too robust to be affected 
by any trifle. Essie had never seen him sick, even 
slightly. How should she not be especially star 
tled, then, to hear him making moans in the night ? 

No low moan, either. His room was a far at 
tic, yet Essie, though she was distant almost the 
length of the house and slept by no means lightly, 
was awakened by the sound. 

Her husband had not been disturbed, and she 
let him lie. There were reasons why she should 
hesitate to arouse him on such occasion, but she 
did not debate the matter she was so seized with 
alarm that the idea never entered her head. Bill 
was in some great and unwonted distress, and the 
impulse to go and find what ailed him possessed her 
wholly. She was conscious of nothing else, and 
least of all of any misgivings, as she slipped quickly 
out of bed and, without so much as throwing a 
wrap about herself, barefoot and clad only in her 
night-gown, hurried to the stairway. She might 
have been even less troubled, even less urged by 

240 



A Knight in Denim 

her solicitude, and yet have taken no more thought 
of impropriety than if she were going to the relief 
of a suffering child. 

At the bottom of the stairs she paused and lis 
tened, and in a moment heard the moan repeated. 

"Bill!" she called. 

No answer. Was he insensible, then ? If he 
was poisoned, and already insensible, it meant that 
he was far gone so much she knew, or believed 
she knew. 

" Bill, are you sick ?" she called again, and when 
once more no answer came out of the darkness her 
heart fairly stood still. 

But if her heart stood still her feet did not. 
Altogether heedless of the situation she was placing 
herself in, foreseeing nothing of evil, considering 
nothing unless it should be that she confronted a 
desperate emergency such as dispensed her from 
all conventionality and probably not that, since 
she acted so entirely upon the impulse of her great 
concern she flew up the stairway. 

It was densely dark up there, and because she 
quite forgot, in her agitation, that under the rigid 
dispensation of economy Bill was used to retire 
without a light, she had to fly back and get a lamp. 
She felt the strain most in that moment, perhaps, 
so that she trembled, and stumbled somewhat, and 
groped wretchedly to find the matches, though she 

241 



A Knight in Denim 

knew precisely where they were. The wick, too, 
was slow to take fire, and by its feeble, reluctant 
fashion of burning at last forbade her to make too 
much haste in carrying it up the draughty stairway. 
The thought of the time she was losing greatly dis 
tracted her, even though she had no definite notion 
of what measures she should take, or if, indeed, 
she should know how to take any. 

That Bill was in a serious manner afflicted, a 
glance sufficed to show. He lay in a cramped post 
ure, suggesting nothing so much as that pain had 
doubled him up, yet without motion, as senseless as 
a log. Something in his aspect, though she could 
not tell what, intimated that he had been taken with 
a fit. Was he subject to fits ? Certainly she knew 
nothing of it if he was, and yet she found herself 
grasping hopefully at the possibility that a fit was 
what ailed him hopefully, since anything were 
better than to believe him poisoned. 

She had time to form the purpose of fetching cold 
water, that first of all first aids, and had set the 
lamp on the rude stand by the bed, when a slight 
noise behind her caused her to face about, and 
there, in the doorway, stood her husband. He, too, 
was clad only in his night-dress, and he had his 
pistol in his hand. 

He was a fearsome apparition, and not least so 
by reason of the grin that made hideous his face. 

242 



A Knight in Denim 

"To your knees!" he cried, in a terrible voice. 

A sickening sense of some dreadful thing im 
pending struck Essie dumb. She could only stare, 
with starting eyes, and quake miserably. 

To your knees, and ask pardon of the just God 
whom you are about to meet!" shouted Haldean 
violently. 

What he threatened was all too apparent. Was 
he capable of such a deed ? At all events she had 
never known him wear so dire a look there was 
the glare of insanity in his eyes, and she felt that 
he might do anything. Probably she was very near 
to believing that she had indeed but a short time 
to live. 

He wasn t done talking, however. " I will make 
an end of these vile doings!" he raged. "Your 
paramour I will attend to later quite possibly I 
shall spare him, since he is a fool, and a fool is not 
to blame for what a bad woman leads him to do. 
But you shall pay the penalty here and now. I 
have only waited till I might catch you in the midst 
of your iniquity, and here you are. Am I to under 
stand that you don t wish to say your prayers ? 
Ah, I dare say it would be useless there is guilt 
too black for even the Lord of Mercy to forgive!" 

At last her lips could form speech. "Whom do 
you refer to as my paramour?" 

Haldean broke into a wild laugh. "Behold 
243 



A Knight in Denim 

him!" he exclaimed, waving his pistol toward Bill. 
" Isn t he a lovely lover, though a very Hyperion 
Antinous! I question if ever was a mortal fit 
to compare with him. I commend your taste, 
madam it does you great honor. Titania and 
Bottom over again with apologies to Titania, 
however!" 

"He is sick, and I came to see what I might do 
for him!" protested Essie, with a great effort to 
meet the situation quietly lest otherwise she stir 
a madman to greater madness. "Look, you can 
see for yourself how sick he is." 

To be sure, to be sure!" sneered Haldean. 

"He may be dying!" 

"Quite likely! Still, I will wager you something 
that he outlives his ladylove." 

"Tudor!" 

Tudor! Oh, certainly by all means. There 
was once another Tudor who knew what to do with 
a faithless wife. And, by the way!" 

He fell to chuckling, and the malign grin broad 
ened till his teeth showed most strangely and horri 
bly. Essie s fortitude was not proof against so 
unnerving a sight, and involuntarily she shrank 
back and put her hands over her face. 

"I ve a fancy for picturesque effects," he an 
nounced, with a flourish of grewsome jocularity. 
"On second thought, I think I will dispose of you 

244 



A Knight in Denim 

both at once. In life united, in death why divided ? 
But I desire to have you properly posed. Get into 
the bed, strumpet!" 

His eyes blazed like torches. 

"Get into the bed/ he snarled, "and clasp your 
arms about your paramour, and die as you have 
lived. Take the fool s soul along with you to judg 
ment, and let it be what apology for you it may. 
You can argue with God that having misbehaved 
with a fool, the fact ought to count in your favor. 
Ha, ha! Do you hear me?" 

He advanced with his free hand out-stretched, 
as if he would lay hold of her. The attic was close 
up under the sloping roof, and the ceiling, nowhere 
high, came down to within three feet of the floor 
at the sides it was there that Essie crouched and 
cowered, too affrighted to try to escape. Haldean 
came on as far as he could without stooping, and 
halted, glowering. 

"Get up and come here!" he commanded 
harshly. 

She obeyed that is, she crept toward him. For 
now the great first law of nature asserted itself, and 
Essie was minded to implore her husband s mercy. 

"Don t kill me, Tudor!" she begged passion 
ately. "What have I done that you should wish 
to kill me ? Haven t I left everything, sacrificed 
everything, to cleave unto you? Don t don t!" 

245 



A Knight in Denim 

Her humility amused him, if amusement could 
be anything so savage. But for the rest he was 
unmoved by her piteous entreaties. "Get into the 
bed, I tell you!" he roared, and gripped her by the 
arm. 

At that she shrieked. It was the outcry of 
a soul in utter terror, confronted with a fearful 
doom, and it was superlatively piercing. It pene 
trated Bill s lethargy, hitherto unbroken, so that he 
started up. 

Essie saw him, and clutched at the chance of 
deliverance. "Oh, Bill, don t let him kill me!" 
she cried frantically. 

Bill s instinct, if not his faculties, took instant 
alarm. Whatever the spell that had been upon 
him, it passed like a breath at the sound of his 
mistress s voice, so eloquent of distress. With the 
quickness of a panther he was up and to the rescue. 
Essie felt her husband s grip relax, and shut her 
eyes, having no thought but that the death-dealing 
pistol was about to do its work. 

That was not to be, however. Instead, there 
ensued a brief interval of dead silence, and it was 
broken by Bill. 

"Hain t ye feelin right well, cap?" she heard 
him ask, and his tone of kindly anxiety admonished 
her that events were taking no such turn as she 
had expected. 

246 



A Knight in Denim 

Indeed they were not. Even as Bill spoke, the 
pistol slipped from Haldean s fingers and dropped, 
with a loud rattle, to the floor. The master was 
being strangely overpowered. He labored hard 
for breath all at once, and tore with both hands at 
the collar of his night-dress, to loosen it. In a 
moment s time his face lost all its flush and grew 
ghastly and sunken, like the face of death. He 
opened his lips with a low, frightened cry, and a 
thick stream of blood gushed forth. He swayed, 
plunged forward, and would have fallen prone only 
that Bill caught him in his arms and laid him gently 
on the bed. 

Though shocked to the very marrow, Essie was 
not prostrated. On the contrary, the effect was to 
restore her to herself. "Go for a doctor, Bill!" 
she directed calmly. And when Bill, all eagerness 
to be of service and all forgetful of his own illness, 
had set forth, on foot but at a faster pace than many 
a horse could keep up with, she busied herself with 
various homely measures of relief. 

The flow of blood greatly abated after the first 
outburst, and presently ceased altogether. But 
the loss had been great, as the drenched bedding 
and the spattered floor testified, and Haldean lay 
for a long while unconscious. Part of the time he 
breathed so faintly that she almost believed he 
breathed no more, but she kept steadily at work, 

247 



A Knight in Denim 

with cooling cloths at the temples and brandy 
dropped between the colorless lips, and at length 
she was rewarded by seeing him revive somewhat. 
But still he was very, very weak too weak even 
to lift his eyelids. 

At the first sign of returning life she spoke to 
him. Tudor, you are better ?" 

He heard her that was apparent; and he tried 
to answer, but for the present his tongue refused 
its office. 

"Don t try to talk lie quiet till you are 
stronger!" she cautioned him gently. 

But he only renewed the effort, and shortly to 
some avail. "I shall never be better," he gasped 
hoarsely. "You will have the satisfaction of know 
ing that you killed me!" 

That bitter, spiteful speech was a foretaste of 
what was to come. To the last he remained as 
ungracious as possible, always sorry for himself, 
but with no consideration for any one else, railing 
and complaining continually. 

It was well on toward morning when the doctor 
arrived. He found the sick man asleep, and for 
fear of waking him made only a cursory search 
for symptoms. But, for that matter, no more was 
necessary to discover what a desperately sick man 
he had to deal with the symptoms that lay on the 
surface told the story. 

248 



A Knight in Denim 

"Will he live?" Essie asked, and the anxiety 
which wrung her heart was void of ungenerous 
reservation. 

"He will live," the doctor replied, but when she 
asked how long, she perceived that he had equivo 
cated. 

"He cannot recover ? Please be frank with me, 
sir!" 

"I am not aware of any authentic instance of 
recovery from consumption so far advanced you 
should not deceive yourself as to that. At the 
same time nothing is impossible, and always while 
there s life there is hope." 

They fought a valiant fight against the destroyer, 
Essie and Bill, and when it was over the doctor 
took occasion to say so. And if, out of proper del 
icacy, he refrained from complimenting the wife s 
devotion too freely, as if that were a thing not to 
be expected, he did not in the least stint his praise 
of Bill s part. "A trained nurse could have done 
no better, and probably wouldn t have done so 
well!" he declared, a little extravagantly, perhaps, 
but in all sincerity. 

Certainly Bill deserved to be praised. He was 
assiduous and gentle and deft, and his patience 
was a marvel. Had Haldean deliberately set out 
to be troublesome that he actually did so was 
altogether probable he could not well have made 

249 



A Knight in Denim 

a greater trial of his illness. His petulance and 
unreason with respect of lesser things were only 
what might be expected, considering how weak 
and feverish he was; but it was more than that 
when he openly and repeatedly accused the rela 
tions of Bill and Essie and in the doctor s presence 
charged them with conspiring to put him out of 
the way. He professed to believe that he had been 
laid low by a slow poison which his wife was ad 
ministering secretly, and when the doctor, taking 
him at his word, tried to shame him out of so 
monstrous a suspicion, he showed plainly that he 
suspected nothing of the sort and only wished to 
be as unkind and insulting as possible. That was 
the worst if he had been delirious, even in the 
least degree, his behavior would signify nothing; 
but these outbursts, so full of deliberate and cal 
culating malignancy, were almost more than Essie 
could bear. For all her anxiety, so generous and 
free from unworthy sentiment, there were times 
when she was fain to run away for a little to avoid 
being drawn into a display of just resentment. 
And those were the times when Bill s quality shone 
forth especially, for he never flinched. No doubt 
he had less sensibility and could not be so easily 
wounded, but that would scarcely account for all 
his prodigious patience. He was as cheerfully 
ready to endure all things as a tender mother with 

250 



A Knight in Denim 

a sick child. And the things to be endured, wholly 
apart from the peculiar temper of the patient, were 
not trifling, as every one knows who has had to do 
with the care of a consumptive at the last. 

Essie was concerned for him in that connection. 
"Is there not danger of infection ?" she asked the 
doctor. 

The man of medicine looked at Bill and smiled. 
"I d as soon think of a buffalo catching measles!" 
quoth he. 

The end came in about two months, and, as often 
happens in such cases, suddenly. There was no 
body with the master but Essie, and he passed away 
so quietly that she was not aware, till some minutes 
later, that he had breathed his last. There was 
no final scene between them. She at once called 
Bill, asleep in another room. 

"Mr. Haldean is dead," she said. 

"You don t aim to tell me!" said Bill. 

Thereupon Essie broke down. "Oh, Bill, was 
I as good to him as I should have been?" she 
sobbed. 

Bill wept, too, boisterously. "If you wasn t, 
nuther was I!" he bawled. 



251 



CHAPTER XVIII 

FROM the moment when Essie became a 
widow, it suited Bill to regard Throstlewood 
as no longer his, but hers. By what process he 
brought about the transfer in nowise appeared 
mere details of that sort were not likely to concern 
him anyway; but the visible amount of it was that 
he descended, voluntarily and with good grace, to 
the estate of a hired man. The farm was Essie s 
henceforth, and while he had never deemed it good 
business to work for others, he would work for her. 
Whatever his arrangements were, he made them 
all by himself, without consulting a soul, and when 
he had them to his satisfaction he notified his mis 
tress, the chief party in interest. 

"Dunno s I care bout ownin prop ty, some 
how!" quoth he, by way of making his position 
clear. 

Essie was thereupon as grave as she looked, for 
it was ground for apprehension when Bill should 
set forth on a departure so radical. "Why not, 
pray ?" she asked. 

"Spons bility!" he replied, marshalling the big 
word with a pompous flourish. 

252 



A Knight in Denim 

It was a great relief to her when he went on to 
say that he somehow druther be a hired man for a 
spell her hired man. She understood, and the 
understanding brought tears to her eyes. Not 
in the least did he ask her consent, but she was 
very glad, indeed, to overlook that formality once 
more she understood and was profoundly touched. 
Was ever knight more faithful ? 

"Very well, Bill, * she said. "But if you are go 
ing to be my hired man, you will have to be paid 
wages. What about wages ?" 

At that he assumed an air of deep subtlety. 
"I m cornsid rin ," said he, and that was as far as 
he would ever go with the discussion of the subject. 
As often as she broached it, he was still considering, 
and his air grew subtler and subtler, if that were 
possible. 

Not so very long after the master s passing, the 
financial skies altered their complexion materially. 
Bill got his pension. It was a small pension, only 
the four dollars a month prescribed by law for the 
least disability; but the accumulation of back pay 
amounted to no mean sum several hundred dol 
lars, in fact, quite enough to make a different out 
look at Throstlewood. 

It was all very astonishing, and nobody could 
be more astonished than Bill himself, though he 
affected to carry the matter off loftily, as if it were a 
matter of course and only what he had been looking 

253 



A Knight in Denim 

for right along. For once the mills of the gods had 
been grinding out favor without prompting on the 
part of their beneficiary, and their motive, pri 
marily at least, seemed to lie in the interest of the 
agent who had examined Bill and tried so hard and 
so vainly to find him in some respect entitled to be 
rated as an invalid. A toilsome search of the 
military records had discovered a Private William 
Harbaugh, who was in all probability none other 
than Bill, and who beyond the shadow of a doubt 
had been a most excellent soldier. How a man 
capable of serving with credit through the tremen 
dous battles of Chancellorsville and Antietam, to 
say nothing of a score of engagements only lesser, 
and still remember nothing of it beyond a few 
vague particulars of some insignificant skirmish 
that was something for psychologists to puzzle 
their heads over. The pension authorities were 
not psychologists, but they wondered greatly and 
deemed the case as strange as any they had ever 
encountered, and what was more to the point the 
wish grew with them, as they proceeded with their 
investigation, to see Private William Harbaugh 
visited with the substantial testimony to his coun 
try s gratitude. In short, his merit so appealed to 
them that they cut through the red tape, made 
nothing of the technical difficulties, and caused the 
pension to be granted. 

But though the financial skies were markedly 
254 



A Knight in Denim 

affected, it is not to be taken for granted that they 
were particularly less overcast. Clouds are capa 
ble of presenting a variety of aspects without ceas 
ing to be clouds. 

The agent, personally, and in a high glow of sat 
isfaction, journeyed out to the Valley bringing the 
news and the great lump of money all at once. 
Essie s first intimation of anything in the wind was 
when he drove up. She was all alone at the house, 
and when he asked for William Harbaugh she 
directed him to the field where Bill was at work. 
Not without apprehensions she was glad to see 
the stranger go as he had come, by himself; and 
that was the extent of her intimation until noon 
brought Bill to his dinner. 

He demeaned himself about as usual nearly 
through the meal, when all at once, as if bethinking 
himself of lesser affairs as the satisfaction of his 
hunger permitted, he plunged into his pocket and 
pulled out three rather thick packets of bills, and 
in a light, airy manner, as to make so much paper 
of them, proceeded to strew them about his plate. 
They formed something of a drift disposed in such- 
wise. In fine, it was a spectacle most unwonted 
in those precincts, and a spectacle, too, well cal 
culated to give Essie uneasiness. 

"Bill!" she exclaimed aghast. "Where did you 
get that money ?" 

255 



A Knight in Denim 

The thought which flashed into her mind went 
back to the robbery of old Gothard and the mis 
fortune that had come of it. Had Bill, though in 
nocent then, been started in the way of the trans 
gressor by having transgression laid at his door ? 
Having found it glorious to be accused and brought 
to judgment, had he, with whom glory acted like 
a high wine, been prompted to rob that he might 
be freshly called to account ? Not improbably 
Essie had to confess that it would be like him so to 
go astray. 

But that wasn t the way of it at all. Tell me, 
Bill!" she insisted, mindful still of the other occa 
sion when he had come to her with money in his 
hands. 

"Feller give it to me!" he answered coolly. 

"What fellow?" 

"Short-complected feller like. Had a sorrel 
mare with three white feet an a leetle sprung in 
the off knee. Not so s t you d scurcely notice it, 
an* still a leetle sprung. Maybe you seen the 
mare ?" 

"Do you mean the man who came out to the 
field to find you this morning?" 

"That s the critter!" 

"And he gave you all that money ?" 

"Yep! Had a new-fangled do-funny sort of a 
pen like. There was ink to it but no ink-bottle, 

256 



A Knight in Denim 

nears I could make it out. He brung some papers, 
an* he handed me his do-funny an told me to make 
my mark. I done so, as the Dutchman said, an 
then he forked over this here. Forked it right over 
slick an clean!" 

"But, Bill! why should the man be paying you 
so much money ? Did he owe it to you ?" 

"I reckon it s mine, all right. Feller claimed it 
was my pension, an I s pose he d oughter know." 

And just here his memory played a character 
istic prank. If it was no better than a sieve for 
holding what really mattered, he could none the 
less bethink him of Dan Linton, whose enjoyment 
of a pension he had once been made to regard as 
a reproach to himself. Now, at length, it lay in 
his mouth to crow over Dan Linton. "Dan, he ll 
diskiver he hain t no cuter maybe n some others!" 
he chuckled. It was a new reflection, and it caused 
him to brighten visibly and to take distinctly more 
interest in his money. In short, he began to scent 
distinction, though it should be of a tame variety. 

Essie was to the last degree mystified. She was 
not aware, as it happened, that Bill had been a 
soldier even, to say nothing of his being an appli 
cant for a pension. Moreover, what kind of a bus 
iness was it which would send money showering 
down upon a simpleton at work in a cornfield, 
in utter disregard of his simplicity ? If the agent 

257 



A Knight in Denim 

had been a fairy godmother in disguise he could 
hardly have gone about his operations more ro 
mantically, with less heed to the natural conse 
quences. How largely the pension system was 
founded on sentiment and by sentiment adminis 
tered Essie had never been in a position to learn, 
and so the fashion of its bounty gave her first of all 
a sense of unreality. But it was real enough, and 
fraught enough with embarrassments, as very pres- 
sently developed. 

Bill finished his dinner and rose to go, leaving 
his funds spread out on the table. 

"Aren t you going to take your money with 
you?" asked Essie, whom the briefest considera 
tion had apprised of the uncomfortable position 
she was likely to be placed in by Bill s stroke of 
fortune. 

He glanced at her uncertainly. "Guess maybe 
I d better," he said, and gathered up the bills with 
as little ceremony as if they had been corn husks, 
crushing them back into his pocket. 

"You ll lose some of it if you re not careful!" 
she warned him. 

"That s all right! That s all right!" he rejoined, 
and swaggered out with the port of the veriest 
prodigal. 

It was an afternoon of sober debating for Essie. 
In a few hours, accidents apart, the problem would 

258 



A Knight in Denim 

present itself again, and it would have to be met. 
Bluntly, how could she bring herself to take the 
money into her own keeping ? But all things con 
sidered, how could she do otherwise ? She knew 
perfectly well what Bill s wish was beyond a 
doubt, he had intended, in his vague way, to leave 
the bills with her when he threw them out on the 
table, and had put them back in his pocket only 
because her manner suggested unwillingness. What 
would suit him best, and be best for him, was that 
she assume charge of the money and use it pre 
cisely as if it were her own by no other disposition 
could he derive so much benefit of it or so much 
satisfaction. Yet she had only to reflect on what 
the world would say of such a course to feel herself 
forbidden. Of course she could not use the money 
without the world getting to know, nor could the 
source of her means be kept a secret. And equally, 
of course, the world would accuse her of having 
taken advantage of Bill. She would gain an odi 
ous reputation, and to her reputation what good 
woman may be indifferent ? It is she if any one 
who has to avoid the appearance of evil. 

But there was another side, not to be overlooked. 
To let him keep the money, to be carried about with 
him like some small boy s moderately esteemed toy 
that of itself were a wrong which grew fast in 
contemplation. The best to be hoped of so doing 

259 



A Knight in Denim 

was that he might speedily lose the stuff and so be 
rid of it, for until he should be rid of it somehow 
he was liable to be the prey of all sorts of unscrupu 
lous designs. You need not go far from Throstle- 
wood to find persons who, in Essie s estimation at 
least, would not hesitate to murder if by murder 
they might possess themselves of so large a sum. 
Nor was that to conjure up a remote contingency 
to borrow trouble gratuitously. Bill was alto 
gether likely to parade his windfall in season and 
out, and there lurked in his nature a quality of ob 
stinacy which, refusing to be wheedled out of the 
plunder, would have the effect of putting villany 
to its resources. No, murder was by no means 
out of the question; she had to ask herself very 
seriously if she had the right to save her reputa 
tion at the risk of her faithful retainer s life. 

How could she take over the money ? How 
could she not ? 

Of Bill s quality of obstinacy she was soon to 
have a demonstration. Toward evening, as she 
debated, an inspiration came to her so simple, 
all in the usual style of inspirations, that she won 
dered how it had not been her first thought. Why 
not persuade Bill to deposit his funds in the village 
bank in his own name ? 

As soon as he came in she laid the proposal be 
fore him not baldly and bluntly, but with all cau- 

260 



A Knight in Denim 

tion and such various representations as she could 
think of calculated to make him aware of the exi 
gencies; and point-blank it was rejected. 

"Please, Bill!" she begged, for she had grown so 
anxious that it wasn t easy to give up. 

"Not much, Mary Ann!" he blustered, and 
would listen neither to reason nor entreaty. 

What possessed the fellow ? She was ready to 
cry with vexation, and yet, though she conceived 
that she had never known him to show so unami- 
able an aspect, she could see through it, after a 
little, and beneath it discern his old fidelity. Of 
course he knew nothing of banks, either for or 
against them; he wished her to have the money 
that was the whole sum of his aversion to any other 
plan. Having been made conscious of her reluc 
tance, for his simplicity did not hinder him from 
taking impressions very, very readily, he was loath 
to say what he wanted, but the desire of his faith 
ful heart was to give the money into her keeping. 
How should she be vexed with him long, even 
though she was no nearer seeing her way clear to 
do as he would have her ? 

He went off to bed with a bill sticking so far out 
of his pocket that she easily read the denomination. 
It was a one-hundred-dollar bill. 

If it had been an afternoon of sober argument, 
the night was a night of worry. Essie scarcely 

261 



A Knight in Denim 

slept at all, and then but fitfully, her slumber 
haunted with ugly dreams; and now it was the 
thought of having so much ready money in the 
house that troubled her terrified her at last, so 
that she got up and prowled about like a sentinel 
on guard. In all likelihood Bill had not failed to 
display his windfall the only chance to the 
contrary was the remote chance that nobody had 
come his way and how did she know but de 
signs were already hatched to break in and steal ? 
More than once, so wrought upon was she by her 
forebodings, she fancied she heard hands trying 
the windows. 

But no such evil came to pass, and in the morning 
affairs took a new turn. It appeared that Bill had 
been thinking, too, if the nebulous process whereby 
he framed his purposes were rightly to be so des 
ignated. He didn t go into the field that day, but 
with his subtlest air, and giving no hint of what he 
intended, he betook himself off in the direction of 
Atro City. 

That was worrisome, likewise, though not so 
acutely so. Where was the untoward business to 
end ? 

Bill was gone till about noon. And the manner 
of his return was astonishing enough. 

He had caused himself to be tricked out in a cos 
tume truly marvellous. The most striking detail 

262 



A Knight in Denim 

of it was a flaming red mackinaw blouse, and you 
doubtless know what mackinaw is the heaviest 
and densest sort of flannel, designed to be worn only 
in exceedingly cold weather, whereas to-day was 
an uncommonly hot day in summer. Bill had the 
unseasonable garment buttoned up to his chin and 
belted tightly about him, and it made him sweat 
prodigiously; but in spite of the manifest discom 
fort, he came on with his head erect, as proudly as 
any soldier on parade. Along with his blouse he 
wore buckskin gloves having a gilt star stamped 
on the cuffs, and a broad cowboy hat not less radi 
antly adorned. But the crowning touch, though 
at a distance you did not catch it, was the strong 
perfume with which he had sprinkled himself 
drenched, rather, to judge by results. 

Very evidently he expected to make a sensation. 
It were cruel not to applaud, and Essie could not 
be cruel to Bill. 

"Isn t it pretty warm, though ?" she asked, fin 
gering the skirt of the mackinaw to test its quality. 

"I reckon what ll keep out the cold had oughter 
keep out the warmth!" he replied, with a finality 
which bespoke the philosopher confident of his 
deductions. 

And still the field and the crops had no charms 
for him. He spent the remainder of the day strut 
ting about in his finery. Especially he lingered 

263 



A Knight in Denim 

near the road, and as often as any one passed he 
could be heard insisting that whatever kept out the 
cold ought logically to keep out the heat in a like 
manner. 

He was entirely and intensely happy so long as 
he could be making his sensation, but when night 
had fallen, and he sat in the kitchen with his mis 
tress, a dejection came upon him. He took out 
the money and handled it over, and she heard him 
talking to himself. 

"Seems so hit s bout as much as twas!" he 
muttered discontentedly. 

She knew what he meant the windfall had 
grown a sore burden to him, so that he was minded 
to throw it off in any way he might; he had gone 
to town in the instinctive understanding that 
money might there be spent, and now the result 
was disappointment, since he had seemingly, so 
far as he could see, as much money as ever. So 
much she knew, but even at that she wasn t ready 
to come to his relief, though she caught him stealing 
timid and furtive glances at her which had in them 
a mighty power of appeal. And so, next day, he 
had another fling. Morning found him much re 
stored in spirits, and all in his brave array he set 
forth once more. 

Atro City was just then in the midst of one of 
those curious compromises between the dominant 

264 



A Knight in Denim 

commercialism of the present and the old-time 
carnival spirit they call them street fairs. The 
village was all fluttering with cheap and tawdry 
decorations in outlandish style, the thoroughfares 
were blocked with show-tents and booths, and the 
barker in his multiformity was vociferously abroad 
in the land. There was uproar everywhere, in fact 
it was the particular character of the thing. 

Noisiest of all, no doubt, was the merry-go- 
round, in virtue of its hideous hurdy-gurdy grind 
ing out popular tunes. It was at the merry-go- 
round that Bill, marching into town that morning, 
fetched up first. The affair caught his fancy. 

"Lemme ride hind that there big cat with the 
side whiskers!" he demanded, to the great amuse 
ment of the crowd. 

The big cat with the side whiskers professed to 
be the figure of a royal Bengal tiger, but the pro 
prietor of the concern, scenting profit, did not in 
the least mind having his animals called out of 
their right name. Bill was duly taken aboard, and 
rode delightedly, as his unrestrained whoops and 
wild wavings of the cowboy hat well attested. In 
fact, he was quite beside himself with joy, in testi 
mony thereof made only less noise than the hurdy- 
gurdy, and served vastly more to promote the 
general gayety. Nor was he selfish in his pleasure; 
a closely packed fringe of children looked on dis- 

265 



A Knight in Denim 

consolately, in default of the price, and these he 
caused to be taken aboard, too. 

"Have you the money to pay?" the proprietor 
inquired, suspicious of such a wholesale order. 

Bill snatched out his windfall and flourished it 
aloft. "That nough ?" he demanded, with the 
genuine spendthrift air. 

It was enough, and the children had their treat. 
Their host stayed with them awhile, but his enjoy 
ment was too intense to last it effervesced like 
wine, and he passed on to explore other diversions. 

The guild of swindlers were not likely to remain 
long ignorant that the queer chap in a red macki- 
naw blouse had his pockets full of real money, and 
Bill was straightway the object of their assiduous 
attention. Not fifty feet away from the merry- 
go-round he was deftly steered up to a wheel of 
fortune. 

"No blanks no matter where the needle stops, 
you ll get something!" the barker barked entic- 
ingly. 

A chance cost a dollar, and that was a good deal 
to pay for the cigar which was the least valuable 
article you could win, or for the trinkets which 
made up most of the remaining offerings. But 
here and there in the circle which the point of the 
needle traversed were gold coins several five-dol 
lar pieces and at least one ten-dollar piece. It is 

266 



A Knight in Denim 

possible, you perceive, if you are not too sophisti 
cated, to pay in a dollar and get it back increased 
tenfold. 

Bill wasn t a bit backward about being steered 
up no child could be keener for novelty than he. 
The polished needle fascinated him at once, and 
he watched it absorbedly while it slowed down, 
stopped, swung back, hovered to and fro unde 
cidedly, and finally came to a perfect stand-still. 
And when the barker, instantly discerning a victim 
to be plucked, besought him to try his luck, he 
laid down his dollar unhesitatingly, incidentally 
discovering to the world that he did not know a 
dollar from a half and by that intensifying the 
swindler s interest in him. 

"Whirl it yourself, neighbor, so you ll know 
there s no trick about it!" directed the latter gra 
ciously, and Bill, laughing for glee, set the needle 
in motion. 

It was an uncommonly long time coming to a 
decision, hovering and hovering, while the crowd 
gaped in suspense; and when it stopped, it stood 
over a five-dollar gold piece. "Easy, easy, easy!" 
sang out the barker, and tossed the coin to Bill. 

There were stool-pigeons at hand to do their 
part, and they employed the usual devices to in 
duce Bill to try another throw. He needed little 
urging, for the present the fun of whirling the 

267 



A Knight in Denim 

needle was too great and too new to be abandoned 
so soon. The swindlers were playing him with a 
view to awaking the gambling insl -nct in him, and 
they augured too well, no doubt, of the light they 
saw in his eyes. Yet they played him carefully, too, 
for he was a big fish, and so, when he whirled a 
second time, the needle stopped over the ten-dollar 
piece. 

But right there the wine effervesced once more. 
For once the swindlers had mistaken their prey 
they were used to deal with simpletons, but not 
such a simpleton. Bill s elation was spent all at 
once. Mechanically, since they were thrust toward 
him, he gathered his winnings into his pocket and 
turned wearily away. Even the glittering needle, 
fascinating plaything though it was, could tempt 
him no further. 

"Come, come, man! Ain t you goin to be a 
sport and try again ?" the barker, in very real dis 
may, called after him. 

"Nope!" answered Bill doggedly, and the crowd 
jeered at the sharper s patent discomfiture. 

He was a drooping, downcast retainer who re 
turned to the mistress at Throstlewood that even 
ing. He came plodding heavily, his gorgeous 
blouse ignominiously rolled up under his arm, his 
cowboy hat crushed out of shape, his gloves gone 
altogether. But he had his bunch of bills still, 

268 



A Knight in Denim 

and the gold coins besides, and he threw them all 
down on the kitchen table cast them from him 
in utter disgust -and dropped into a chair. 

"I m a poor, ign ant feller!" he exclaimed, with 
infinite pathos. When was it like Bill to distrust 
himself, and, distrusting himself, what was there 
left in life for him ? 

Essie could hold out no longer. " Do you wish 
me to take care of the money for you, Bill ?" she 
asked. 

Y gorry, yes!" he replied, brightening as the 
sky when the clouds part. 

As soon thereafter as possible she made a de 
posit in the Bank of Atro City, in the name of 
Esther Haldean, Trustee. The cashier suggested 
that style when she told him something of the cir 
cumstances. She liked it, because it seemed in a 
sense to take the curse off. 

And Bill was forthwith himself again, blithe and 
buoyant, with all his interest in his fields restored. 



269 



CHAPTER XIX 

THOUGH the money was safely out of the 
house, and where no thief was likely to break 
in and steal, Essie did not cease to be haunted 
it still weighed on her mind, and not lightly. 
Whereas Bill was troubled no more, his mistress 
could by no means count herself so fortunate. 

There is a phrase about starving in the midst of 
plenty in these plenteous days only a phrase, with 
almost nobody pausing to consider what it might 
mean in other circumstances. But Essie s poverty 
was a distressful fact, and unremittingly so. The 
acres of soil which had fallen to her seemed almost 
to grow in sterility from season to season, for all 
that they had never before known such faithful till 
age contrive as she would, it was bitterly difficult, 
even after the hard times had passed for the rest of 
the world, to wring the barest livelihood out of them. 
She did not starve, literally, but often and often 
she fancied that literal starvation couldn t be much 
worse. And here, in the form of Bill s pension, 
was plenty rained down within reach of her hand. 
Can you not believe that the courses of her thought 
were affected by the position in which she found 
herself? 

270 



A Knight in Denim 

Moreover, she held herself the trustee of Bill s 
funds in more than a nominal sense when she had 
herself so styled on the books of the bank, it meant 
more than a quibbling evasion to her. In point 
of fact, she very solemnly, though all within her own 
bosom, consecrated herself to the duty which the 
trust implied. To begin with, she had no very dis 
tinct idea of what that duty amounted to, but at any 
rate her consecration was very real, and entirely 
sincere, and so an idea took form, and the amount 
of it was that she ought to be administering the 
funds to some advantage. The word investment 
suggested itself it was no unfamiliar word, nor 
was she without experience of its meaning. Should 
not the money be invested ? Unless something of 
the kind were done, should she not write herself 
down an unfaithful stew r ard ? 

If Essie had been in easy circumstances, no doubt 
she would willingly have left the pension money 
idle in the bank let well enough alone, in other 
words. But now, even sooner than she knew, she 
was possessed of a wish to make the money yield a 
profit, and if a profit to its owner, then why not 
properly to its steward as well ? That was the 
thought to which she was led by the several influ 
ences at work the thought of such an administra 
tion of Bill s estate as should justly entitle her to 
compensation. Not a penny of gratuity would she 

271 



A Knight in Denim 

take, though she died for it, but fair pay for valua 
ble service was another matter anyhow, she was 
brought to see it a different matter. She under 
stood vaguely, as women are apt to understand in 
such connections, about brokerage; and her pur 
pose, gradually forming, contemplated more and 
more definitely some advantageous investment of 
the funds, with a fair percentage of the profits to 
accrue to her. It was a purpose to alarm her at 
first, but its attractions were not to be denied, 
especially since they had acted upon her in so large 
part unconsciously. Not least of its charms, it 
put her in the light of a business woman, and how 
should she not be pleased by that ? Building 
castles which had the merit of being solidly com 
mercial in character, with no infusion of romance, 
that in strictness were not building castles at all, 
but the beginning of enterprise. 

In fine, Essie s predicament was such as to 
render her the easy and unwitting prey of mislead 
ing fancies, and a visionary scheme was the natu 
ral result. 

She was put in mind of rubber, in the first in 
stance, by a circular which came floating to her, 
through the mails, by the merest chance it was 
so the monster speculation reached out and touched 
her with its tentacles. The circular was addressed 
to Mr. Esau Howden, but nobody was to be found 

272 



A Knight in Denim 

of that name, and so the post-office turned it over 
to Mrs. Essie Haldean as being in a manner next of 
kin. She hadn t the slightest reason to believe it 
was meant for her, but it was unsealed and she 
took a look at it. And having taken a look she 
found that which interested her, and so read it 
through, every word. 

It was all about rubber and the profits to be 
derived from the cultivation thereof, and to Essie, 
in her predicament, the promise it held out was 
alluring and plausible, too. Here was none of 
your extravagant documents, claiming everything. 
The most striking point about it, indeed, was its 
moderation. Essie couldn t help but observe how 
admirably moderate the circular was in its showing. 

Rubber, it informed her, had become a very im 
portant material in the industrial arts. A great 
many articles were made of it which could be made 
of nothing else, and they were articles of prime 
necessity, too. The demand for rubber, in a word, 
was already enormous, and growing by leaps and 
bounds. 

Now to meet that demand there was for the pres 
ent no raw rubber except that which was labori 
ously and expensively and wastefully drawn from 
the wild gum-trees; and precisely as might be ex 
pected, these wild gum-trees were vanishing before 
the onslaught. Within a comparatively few years, 



A Knight in Denim 

the circular was free to predict, there would be no 
wild gum-trees left, and then what ? 

The question answered itself gum-trees would 
have to be cultivated. 

The concern back of the circular, styled the 
Consolidated Rubber Corporation of Yucatan, pro 
posed taking time by the forelock by planting out 
some hundreds of thousands of acres of gum-trees 
forthwith. In fact, something had already been 
done in that way, to the end that rubber from 
cultivated trees was expected to be on the market 
within six months, which meant, as need scarcely 
be pointed out, that in about six months the stock 
of the concern would begin to pay dividends. 

Just here the circular was particularly plausible. 
It enlarged on the wicked wastefulness of the pre 
vailing method of drawing gum from the wild trees, 
whereby the trees were killed and a great part of 
the precious sap allowed to run out on the ground; 
and with that displayed, in pictures which even a 
woman could fathom, a patented device by means 
of which the cultivated trees were to be tapped 
without loss or injury. It was such a clever de 
vice, and so lucidly set forth, that you couldn t very 
well help but have your confidence strengthened. 
Certainly it augured well where difficulties were 
met in so thoroughly scientific a fashion. 

Most tempting of all, however, was a pretty little 
274 



A Knight in Denim 

demonstration, in the plainest of plain figures, of 
what five hundred dollars invested in the Con 
solidated Rubber Corporation s stock might fairly 
be expected to yield in the way of profit. It was 
made arrestingly to appear that a sum no larger 
than that would give assurance of an income equal, 
each year, to more than the principal sunk. That 
looked big, to be sure, but if you went over the 
computation step by step you found no point where 
the circular exceeded the bounds of moderation 
the various elements of the problem were estimated 
most conservatively. 

Bill s funds amounted, in even money, to five 
hundred dollars. 

"Do you want to stay poor ?" asked the circular, 
winding up, and quoted the poet relative to the 
tide in the affairs of men. 

Who should not be persuaded ? Of a certainty 
the monster s tentacles had laid hold of Essie, and 
with no weak and wavering grip. Yet she held 
back there was a native prudence in her which 
demanded assurance and yet again assurance. And 
it was not lacking. What the circular began the 
staid old Home Journal finished. Why should the 
Home Journal, whose word with her was final, have 
seen fit, just at that juncture, to publish a learned, 
authoritative article about rubber ? 

And the article went far, too, in giving counte- 
275 



A Knight in Denim 

nance and support to the circular. Here was the 
Home Journal s word for it that the demand for 
rubber was, indeed, enormously on the increase, 
and that wasteful and reckless methods were fast 
exterminating the wild gum-tree, at present the 
only source of supply. It was true there were 
known to be gum-trees in the Amazon region, but 
they were inaccessible and likely long to remain 
so, owing to the character of the country. But 
science and that was where the article served to 
clinch the matter and do away with the last doubt 
was coming to the rescue; experiments in cul 
tivating the gum-tree had already brought gratify 
ing results, and capital was being interested. 

Yet even that wasn t all the Home Journal did. 
In another part of that very paper Commodore 
Vanderbilt was quoted, in a different connection, 
but pertinently. 

The time to get into an enterprise," remarked 
the commodore, "is when it looks risky to most 
people!" 

And so the monster took Essie captive. She 
was conscious of the fever, and strove not to be 
carried away by it believed she was not; but she 
was captive none the less. 

It stood as something of a testimony to her in 
fatuation that she should deem Bill s approval a 
safeguard. Of course his approval was to be had 

276 



A Knight in Denim 

always, in whatsoever she chose to do, but she took 
no account of that it suited her purpose better to 
find comfort and encouragement in his enthusiastic 
consent. She told him everything as it developed, 
and when she had her mind made up at last she told 
him that, too, all for the sake of having him ex 
pressly with her. Where a responsibility weighed 
so heavily, even a simpleton s sharing in it might 
bring some measure of relief. 

"Bill," said she, "I m going to buy some of that 
rubber stock with your money." 

"You don t aim to tell me!" said he, beaming 
acquiescence if not intelligence. 

"Stock in the Consolidated Rubber Corporation 
of Yucatan! Only think, Bill you ll be a stock 
holder in a corporation!" 

" Ygorry!" 

"And a rich man!" 

"You don t aim- 

" So that when you re old you won t have to work 
any more!" 

The strain of professing to understand so much 
all at once was rather more than Bill could bear 
up under, and he staggered visibly. "I kin git my 
right age any time by goin back to Ihier!" he 
protested uncertainly, as with an inkling that he 
wasn t saying just the appropriate thing. 

Essie laughed gayly, not in the least to make fun 
277 



A Knight in Denim 

of her knight, but because, the decision made, her 
heart was for the moment light, and hope ran full 
and strong too full and strong to be easily dashed. 
And the next day the money went forward, in the 
form of a draft, to the secretary of the great con 
cern. 

Hereupon hope began to encounter new worry, 
and the very first of it was the foreboding that the 
money might go astray, or, if it should safely arrive, 
that the secretary might pocket it and say nothing. 
What had she to show for it if he should ? In her 
unfamiliarity with the machinery .of commercial 
exchange, she imagined she had no protection and 
was wholly at the secretary s mercy. 

But her worry, so far, was without grounds. 
The Consolidated Rubber Corporation, by its 
proper officer, duly wrote in acknowledgment of 
her favor, and on the heels of that grateful message 
came a separate cover containing the certificates of 
stock. These were in themselves an earnest that 
all was well, so imposingly had they been got up. 
The paper they were printed on crackled aris 
tocratically, like parchment, and they were pro 
fusely signed and countersigned and sealed and 
stamped, so as to wear a very particular aspect 
of importance. An effective detail, too, was the 
finely engraved picture they bore, of some hand 
some savages gracefully and with the utmost seem- 

278 



A Knight in Denim 

ing felicity at work in a species of paradise, where 
the trees were doubtless gum-trees. Bill was over 
joyed with the picture, and the showy seals im 
pressed him very much, but the conception of the 
certificates as being his was something not to be 
readily grappled with. Shyly he took the papers in 
his hands, and when Essie pointed to his name, 
written in fancy script, he was incredulous. 

"That there my name?" There was an awe 
upon him, and he stared at the mysterious letters as 
he might at some solemn miracle wrought before 
his eyes. 

"Yes, that s your name William Harbaugh." 
" You don t aim to tell me ! " 
Along with its other engagements, the Consol 
idated Rubber Corporation had promised to keep 
its stockholders posted as to the progress of the 
enterprise, and Essie was thrown into a great flut 
ter when there came, some weeks later, a letter for 
Bill, with the name of the great concern posted up 
in the corner of the envelope. Visions of dividends 
danced before her eyes, and she burned with im 
patience. Bill had fetched the letter from the 
village without once suspecting that it was ad 
dressed to himself, and there came a startled look 
in his face when he was informed of the fact a 
look betokening something not far removed from 
consternation. To tell the truth, his contact with 

279 



A Knight in Denim 

affairs, less than intimate though it should be, was 
getting on Bill s nerves, and he regarded the letter 
doubtfully, turning it over and over, staring first 
at one side and then at the other. 

"That there letter for me, hey?" 

"For you, Bill from the rubber corporation, 
you know. See there is their name in the cor 
ner, and directions to the postmaster to return it 
to them if it isn t called for in five days. Shall I 
open it for you ?" 

He gave it to her in gingerly fashion, as if he were 
right glad to be rid of it but still uncertain whether 
he might not better destroy it, and have it out of 
everybody s way. She tore it open with trembling 
haste, and there was nothing in it but the printed 
announcement that the board of directors had met 
and elected a new secretary. A discernment in 
formed by a larger acquaintance with the way some 
kinds of business are done would perhaps have de 
tected a sinister significance in the news, but to 
Essie it meant as little as to William Harbaugh 
himself. She was disappointed in the contents 
of the letter, but for that she had only herself to 
blame dividends had not been promised before 
six months. 

It was a long six months, full of worry and fore 
bodings. The corporation wrote no more, and it 
was hard to ascribe that to the lack of occasion 

280 



A Knight in Denim 

almost certainly there was that going on which 
stockholders ought by right to be told about; and 
when week followed week and month followed 
month without another letter, Essie s heart grew 
sick. She let Bill know nothing of her misgivings. 
For awhile she talked with him about the invest 
ment, its cheerful prospects, but as these wore away 
under the constant worry, she came by degrees to 
avoid the subject. He, on his part, never brought 
it up of his own motion, and was seemingly en 
tirely willing to forget it. His complacency smote 
her, for it forced her to perceive how she had taken 
advantage of his simplicity. How could she ever 
have done so ? A thousand times she asked her 
self, and wofully wondered, and was every day 
sicker at heart. Now that it was too late she could 
see what worse than folly she had been guilty of. 
To take a poor simpleton s money and risk it on 
the cast of a die, to reward his perfect fidelity 
by stripping him of his all how should her con 
science, being awake at last, let her call it other 
than the wickedness of a wicked woman ? 

At the end of six months, believing the truth 
could not possibly be so hard to hear as the sus 
pense, she wrote to the Consolidated Rubber Cor 
poration. There was no answer. 

She waited two months longer and wrote again, 
and now a letter came: 

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A Knight in Denim 

DEAR SIR: 

Yours of the aoth inst. received. Also yours of earlier 
date, which has been mislaid. The latter would have 
been answered at once only for lack of adequate office 
force. 

I regret to inform you that the Consolidated Rubber 
Corporation of Yucatan has been adjudged insolvent, 
and its affairs are now being wound up under the direc 
tion of the court. I regret further to have to inform you 
that the assets at present in sight will hardly suffice to pay 
the cost of the legal proceedings, and that in all probabil 
ity there will be nothing for the creditors. 

You are duly listed among the creditors and will re 
ceive your pro rata share of whatever assets are found 
available. Respectfully, 

JEFFREYS DEANE, Receiver. 



282 



CHAPTER XX 

IN Atro City and its environs there had his field 
of activity a certain Captain Tryon. Some, 
meaning disrespect, called him a professional old 
soldier, and it was true that he found his chief in 
terest in life in the relations which had grown out 
of his military service. Voices not a few were 
ready to impugn those services, but at all events it 
was not to be denied that he had lost his right arm 
somehow, or that the records of the Pension Bureau 
credited him with having lost it while fighting in 
defence of his country. Let the tongue of oblo 
quy utter what aspersions it might, Captain Tryon 
was, nevertheless, in quarterly receipt of a grateful 
republic s check for one hundred and fifty dollars, 
which constituted a snug little fortune in those 
parts, and left him free to spend his days and his 
energies in old-soldiering, as the phrase went. You 
have, perhaps, met with one or another of the cap 
tain s species a natural busybody with no neces 
sity to be busy about aught but the affairs of 
others. 

He made it his very especial concern to look after 
the affairs of other veterans, all in a fatherly way. 

283 



A Knight in Denim 

It was his gospel, for which he would stand up 
in season and out of season, that these men had 
saved the country, and therefore by good rights 
owned it, if not in fee simple, by a moral title still 
higher; and it was something of a wonder that he 
had never discovered Bill until the granting of the 
latter s pension brought him, as it were, into the 
lime-light. Tryon was considerably shocked, to 
tell the truth, to come upon an old soldier who 
hadn t hastened to affiliate himself with the Grand 
Army of the Republic, and who scarcely ever men 
tioned his martial exploits, as to intimate a de 
plorable lack of pride in them; and not only that, 
his suspicions were moved. 

"I mistrust there s something wrong!" the cap 
tain declared, and charged himself with the burden 
of looking after Bill and his welfare. 

At any rate, there was plenty that might be 
wrongly construed, and even before Captain Tryon 
dipped in the wrong construction had begun to get 
itself made. People who knew Bill at all were 
aware of his mental limitations, particularly with 
regard to his conception of money matters; they 
were easily such as to give rise, in connection with 
the windfall of several hundred dollars of back pay, 
to what the neighbors were pleased to deem a grave 
situation. At first they professed to have nothing 
against Mrs. Haldean, but saying the best of her 

284 



A Knight in Denim 

she was yet an unknown quantity, and had held 
aloof with somewhat of the appearance of consid 
ering herself better than common folks, with the 
natural result that common folks felt under no 
heavy obligation to think well of her. In short, the 
gallant captain had only to institute a few inquiries 
in order to be amply confirmed in his suspicions. 
He saw his duty, and he shrank not. 

"Near s I can ascertain, he s a non compos 
mentis," quoth he learnedly, "and if he is, there ll 
have to be judicial cognizance!" 

But before he took any steps of a decisive char 
acter, Tryon resolved to have a talk with Bill, and 
conceiving reasons why he should not present him 
self at Throstlewood, he lay in wait until the new 
pensioner should chance to come to Atro City. 
That was an uncertain event, but Bill shortly made 
his appearance, all unwitting of the character of 
importance which his windfall had given him, and 
as shy as ever of strangers except as he approached 
them of his own accord. 

Captain Tryon was not a cultivated man, in the 
usual sense, but a native dignity, refined on by 
ample leisure, had given him a courtly manner. 
He could be blunt, as became a military man, but 
he could be diplomatic, too. The pompous phrase 
whereby he had first described Bill was by no means 
all the Latin he could muster. He had likewise 

285 



A Knight in Denim 

Lord Chesterfield s famous maxim quite at the 
end of his tongue. "Suaviter in modo, fortiter in 
re!" he would quote you on occasion, and even 
though there were no occasion, and his practice 
was tolerably conformable. 

At all events nothing could exceed the affability 
with which he approached Bill. "How do you do, 
comrade ?" he greeted, and held out his hand. 

It was a new form of address in Bill s experience 
he had been variously called in his time, but 
never so. "What s that?" he rejoined, and held 
off dubiously. 

"How do you do, sir?" The captain substi 
tuted the more formal title without sacrifice of cor 
diality. 

"Fair, consid rin ," answered Bill indifferently. 

"I see you ve been granted your pension. I 
congratulate you, sir! It is a sad commentary on 
our age that a patriot being given what is due him 
renders him properly subject to congratulation, but 
so it stands." 

"Hey?" ejaculated Bill densely. 

"I say, I congratulate you on being granted your 
pension, Mr. Harbaugh!" 

"Mr. Harbaugh?" 

"Yes that is your name, is it not?" 

"F-m Bill Bill Harbaugh that s right." 

The conversation did not prosper. Bill could 
286 



A Knight in Denim 

be obstinately if not craftily reticent if he chose, 
and that such was his present choice was made 
plainly to appear. But likewise it was made to 
appear that he needed looking after, and if Tryon 
had been in any degree undecided as to his duty, 
he was so no more. 

Not the slightest intimation of the mine under 
her feet did Essie receive until it exploded. Bill s 
memory was wholly unequal to the retention of an 
incident which impressed him so slightly as the 
captain s advances, and when he returned home, 
though he prattled endlessly about the trip, like a 
child, his prattle was all of something else how 
the horses had shied at a rabbit, or how he had 
shaved a tree with his hub going at a furious trot. 
Bill had given his money over to his mistress, and 
there was nothing in the world that concerned him 
less, while as for Essie, hope was still running high 
with her, and she, too, could talk of trifles and fore 
bode nothing. Very likely she would have fore 
boded nothing even had she known all the details 
of Captain Tryon s conversation with Bill there 
was nothing about it especially to alarm a hopeful 
soul. And though hope was destined presently to 
die, there was no intimation of the mine. When 
the receiver s letter shattered her dream utterly, 
she fancied that her cup of misery was full she 
could conceive of no mishap capable of augmenting 
the wretchedness of her plight. 

287 



A Knight in Denim 

The blow fell in the form of a summons to Bill, 
and another to herself, out of the Probate Court. 
They two were ordered to appear at a day specified, 
and show cause why Bill should not be adjudged 
an incompetent and placed under the care of a 
guardian. A copy of the petition in response to 
which the proceedings had been set on foot was 
appended, and in it Essie found, in spite of the 
blind verbiage, that which she could understand 
all too well. As if they had been written in letters 
of fire and were burning into her flesh, she read 
the words wherein it was given as the main reason 
why Bill should have a guardian, that he had lately 
come into a valuable estate. 

To give an account of her stewardship publicly, 
with all the world listening no less than that, she 
perceived, was to be required of her. 

Essie learned, in those days, what it was to de 
spair; and because she despaired, truly and with 
out a reservation in hope s favor, she could be calm. 
She knew she had done what the world would in 
stantly pronounce dishonest, nay, criminal, and 
deserving of grave penalties, and she foresaw the 
most hideous consequences; but these she could 
confront without shrinking, without a pang almost, 
at length with something like relief. Does not 
the stricken conscience thirst for penance ? She 
doubted not that she should be sent to prison as a 
common thief, but she felt no great concern, what 

288 



A Knight in Denim 

with her conscience so stricken and athirst for 
penance and her sensibilities so deadened by de 
spair. 

She could be calm and reflect on what she had to 
do despair did not render her too indifferent for 
that. Calmly she reflected, and resolutely set her 
self a task, and the sum of it was that she should tell 
everything frankly, without extenuation, simply 
and straightforwardly. In much, of course, she 
should be disbelieved, but no matter she would 
tell the truth notwithstanding, let come what might. 
She wished no favor for herself let them do with 
her as they saw fit; but at least it should never be 
marked up against her that she had sought escape 
in falsehood. There was comfort for her con 
science, too, in the resolution she took; her testi 
mony would amount to a confession, and confession 
was good for the soul. Though from first to last 
she had meditated no wrong, though the great 
wrong she had done was not in the least intended, 
still her soul lay under a grievous burden, and con 
fession would be good for it, even as penance would 
be good for it. 

Bill promptly washed his hands of the papers 
that had been served on him, and went buoyantly 
about his work, troubling himself as little as the 
birds which sang over his head. Very briefly, just 
at first, did a species of anxiety penetrate him 

289 



A Knight in Denim 

he seemed, by the circumstance of having docu 
ments handed to him, to be reminded of the pen 
sion agent s visit and the embarrassments ensuing; 
but there was no money accompanying them, and 
besides, Essie took them over at once, without a 
word of parley, and after considerably less than 
the proverbial bad quarter of an hour Bill suffered 
no inconvenience. 

His mistress annoyed him with no further men 
tion of the matter. Nor did she permit him to see 
any difference in her. That was part of the task she 
had set herself, to save Bill from inconvenience in 
so far as she might, and accordingly she held her 
self rigidly to the accustomed way, as if nothing 
had happened. But when the day set for the hear 
ing arrived, she could keep silence no longer. 

"Come, Bill," said she, striving by her manner 
to make little of the occasion, though it meant so 
much to her. "You and I will have to go to the 
village to-day." 

Bill s reply was eminently like him. "Don t 
see how I kin, Essie. That there barley in the 
south patch ain t agoin to do nuthin , an if I git 
it ploughed up an into millet, I hain t got no time 
to spare, sure s you re a foot high. It s dum dry 
to plough a ready, an gittin drier ev ry day." 

"But you ll go with me if I ask you, won t you, 
Bill?" 

290 



A Knight in Denim 

In spite of her best effort to be quite herself in 
all respects, there was a wistfulness in her tone 
and look, and Bill caught their force where an 
other might not. 

"Yes," he said at once. "I ll go if you ask me. 
Course, if you ask me, I ll go." 

The Probate Court, since it dealt mostly with 
dead men s relics, was not apt to be thronged, and 
so it was provided with but a small room wherein 
to transact its business so small that the con 
course drawn by the present unusual proceedings 
was wholly unable to crowd in and had in large 
part to content itself with standing in the corridor 
outside the door. The neighbors were there in 
force men and women and even small children; 
and villagers, stimulated by Captain Tryon s dark 
hints, were by no means wanting. Altogether 
there was such a press about the door that Bill 
and his mistress saw not how they were to enter, 
until the sheriff in the vicissitudes of politics, 
another sheriff, by the way had forced a passage 
for them. 

The judge, a mild little old man with a benevo 
lent fringe of gray beard circling his throat from 
ear to ear, sat informally at a table, and he had 
Essie and Bill given chairs near him. He spoke 
to the woman kindly, too, about the weather and 
such like commonplaces, thus to dispel the sense 

291 



A Knight in Denim 

of solemnity and make her more at ease. She was 
thankful to the judge at once, and more and more 
thankful as the trial proceeded. Captain Tryon 
was there, full of importance and portentous grav 
ity he was the petitioner, in fact, and brought 
along a lawyer to represent him and uphold the 
cause he had espoused. Essie s heart misgave her 
when the lawyer announced himself. Ought not 
she to have a lawyer as well ? 

She asked the judge about that. "But then," 
she hastily added, with a quiver of the lip, " I ve 
nothing to pay a lawyer with." 

The judge beamed on her over his glasses in a 
cheerful manner. "Oh, I guess we can manage 
to get along by ourselves, if we try real hard!" 
quoth he, and his words were very comforting for 
their intimation that he was in some sense with 
her and would look out for her. 

Bill was given his examination first of all, and 
conducted himself in characteristic fashion. And 
most especially he parried every inquiry as if the 
fate of his soul depended on his never committing 
himself. He would not so much as admit that 
there had been a pension granted him. 

"Maybe they was an maybe they wasn t!" he 
said, and was never craftier. 

"Do you mean to deny," the lawyer asked 
sharply, "that the pension agent paid into your 

292 



A Knight in Denim 

hands the sum of five hundred dollars, in round 
figures ?" 

"In round figures ?" repeated Bill. 

"In round figures five hundred dollars, more 
or less!" 

" Y gorry, I never looked to see if they was round 
or square!" To which impertinent response he 
added a vacuous laugh. The lawyer, losing his 
patience, assumed a browbeating air, but it gained 
him nothing. "You keep on your side of the fence 
an I ll keep on mine!" said Bill. 

They essayed to test him with coins, to show that 
he couldn t distinguish one from another. 

"I hold before you a dollar and a fifty-cent piece," 
said the lawyer. "Please tell me which is which, 
if you know." 

"S pose I m tellin ev rybody all I know? Not 
much, Mary Ann," retorted Bill. 

Once, when the lawyer took a moment or two 
to whisper aside with Captain Tryon, Bill s temper 
was touched perhaps he bethought himself, just 
then, of his barley field atThrostlewood. "What s 
all this golblimmed tomfoolery about, anyhow?" 
he demanded irritably. But when his outburst 
set the spectators tittering, it flattered him, and his 
equanimity was quite restored. 

Essie came in for an examination, too. It was 
an ordeal, but she went through it calmly, mani 
festing, except for a degree of pallor, no uncommon 

293 



A Knight in Denim 

emotion. Her responses were prompt and given 
in a firm voice. And on her part there was no 
evasion. 

"You know, Mrs. Haldean, of the five hundred 
dollars, more or less, paid over to William Har- 
baugh by the pension agent?" 

She knew. 

"As a matter of fact, the money passed into your 
possession, did it not?" 

"It did." 

"And is in your possession at the present time ?" 

(( "\T " 

No, sir. 

"What have you done with it?" 

But here, in contrast with the lawyer s rasping 
unfriendliness, the judge spoke up. "Tell us," he 
directed, in an easy, comfortable tone, "all about 
the money, in your own words. Don t hurry 
there s plenty of time." 

And she did as he bade her. 

Her testimony made a sensation. Nobody, not 
even the mistrustful Captain Tryon himself, had 
an inkling of the truth, and when she had finished 
her story, keeping nothing back, a hush of amaze 
ment reigned. The lawyer, quick to seize an ad 
vantage, was the first to find his tongue. 

"You tell us, Mrs. Haldean, that you kept Mr. 
Harbaugh fully informed as to what you were doing 
with his money ?" 

"Yes, sir." 

294 



A Knight in Denim 

" Do you pretend that he understood what you 
were about?" 

"No, sir. I can see now that I imposed upon 
his simplicity. All I can say for myself is that I 
didn t see it so at the time." 

Thereupon she was hard pressed to control her 
self, and might not have succeeded only that the 
gentle old judge spoke up once more and relieved 
the strain. "I should like," said he, "to have a 
bit of a talk with Mrs. Haldean and Mr. Harbaugh 
by themselves. Will all others be pleased to retire 
for a little while ?" 

"Does that include the petitioner and his coun 
sel?" asked the lawyer, evidently not pleased. 

"If you will be so good!" rejoined the judge 
blandly. 

So they three were left alone. Their conference 
lasted half an hour or such a matter, and when the 
public were again admitted, Essie s eyes were red 
with weeping, and Bill looked as if he wanted most 
of all to fight somebody and was only undecided as 
to who it should be. 

The judge had his decision ready, and gave it 
out at once, with his glasses pushed carelessly up 
on his forehead and his glance wandering benignly 
about the room. 

"You and I are both old soldiers, Comrade 
Tryon," he remarked, to begin with. 

295 



A Knight in Denim 

Comrade Tryon vouchsafed no comment, but 
frowned heavily. 

"When," the judge went on, "we see a comrade 
living comfortably and enjoying himself, we are 
glad, and wouldn t disturb him for the world. 
Now, would we, Comrade Tryon ?" 

"I don t know what you re driving at," Com 
rade Tryon answered sullenly. 

The judge s benignity remained unruffled. "A 
court," said he, as kindly as ever, though more in 
the judicial style, "will always, being called upon to 
regulate human relations, hesitate to substitute an 
artificial and arbitrary relation for a relation which 
has grown up naturally and spontaneously. Very 
evidently the respondent here is not like other men, 
but it by no means follows that he should there 
fore have a guardian. I am of the opinion that 
we can best serve his happiness by letting him alone 
for the present, at least. I only wish every old 
soldier were as happily situated. The loss of his 
money is in some respects unfortunate, but to such 
a man worse things might happen. At all events, 
it seems to be finally lost, and for that it need con 
cern us no more; being lost, it ceases to afford the 
occasion for the appointment of a guardian. As 
for Mrs. Haldean, I am satisfied that she is blame 
less. She acted conscientiously in the matter. 
No doubt she did what was not wise, but if all un- 

296 



A Knight in Denim 

wisdom is to be punished, Lord, Lord, who shall 
stand ? 

"The petition is denied and the proceedings 
dismissed." 

Captain Tryon was not the warrior to surrender 
at the first repulse, however his blood was up and 
he presently renewed the attack. That is to say, 
he laid the evidence before the county attorney, 
with a view to having Mrs. Haldean indicted for 
embezzlement or something. But nothing came 
of it. The county attorney was thought to have 
consulted with the judge of probate anyway, he 
declined to act. He professed to believe, much to 
the captain s disgust, that an indictment wouldn t 
stick. 



297 



CHAPTER XXI 

HAD Bill caught a glimpse of the fellow, he 
might possibly have been given suspicions. 
The tinker would hardly have been forgotten, for 
all that Bill s memory was so treacherous, and here 
was a man not unlike certainly about as tall and 
thick, and if he walked differently, with a springy 
step and no shuffling, and dressed differently, in 
good style, these were not traits to beguile a dis 
cernment highly touched with knightly devotion. 
Bill wasn t easily fooled where the interest of his 
mistress bade him look sharp. 

She had an interest here no doubt of that. 
What else, when the fellow could march boldly out 
to Throstlewood, and go in, and tarry there for 
upward of an hour, and make off at last with his 
head up in lofty fashion and the air of elation upon 
him ? If Bill had chanced to see so much, be well 
assured that there would be more to tell. 

But Bill saw nothing, as it happened. Or did it 
happen so ? Taking it for granted that the man 
was the tinker, he had good cause to bear Bill in 
mind and to make it a point to shun him. That 
were no hard matter, of course. A knight in these 

298 



A Knight in Denim 

modern degenerate days might not spend all his 
time incessantly patrolling the ramparts. There 
were fields to be tilled, and knightly service had a 
care for these, and so the tinker, if it was he, might 
easily avoid Bill merely by coming up the other 
way. 

He was not observed by any one, in fact, until 
he took his departure even the neighbors, alert 
to suffer no passer-by to go unstared at, somehow 
missed him. Inasmuch as he was going out, as a 
logical necessity he must have come in, but about 
the first the neighbors saw of him was as he made 
off. If his approach had been covert, his depart 
ure was anything but that. On the contrary, he 
swung along with an easy, satisfied, confident, un 
abashed bearing. He did not act in the least like 
a man flouted. 

As you will believe, he was not to go unstared 
at any longer. Women and children swarmed out 
of the houses along the way, shading their eyes 
ostentatiously with their hands, and subjected him 
to a most uncommon scrutiny. That was a testi 
mony to his unusual character. Clearly, he was 
no ordinary person. Some who claimed experi 
ence entitling them to an opinion gave it out that 
he must have been a soldier in his day, he was so 
well set up, and trod so firmly, with measured 
steps. Not a soul guessed that he was a tinker. 

299 



A Knight in Denim 

When Bill came in and sat down to his dinner, 
Essie occupied herself for the most part in regard 
ing him wistfully. To be sure she had his food 
ready, neglecting nothing, and she served it with 
all the loving attention that a good mistress is wont 
to bestow upon her faithful retainer; but all the 
while she was for the most part engaged in regard 
ing him wistfully. He did not catch her at it, 
though. Doubtless she had a wish that he should 
not, and chance favored her concealment. For it 
happened that he had broken in a new scythe that 
morning a new rig entirely, snath and blade and 
whetstone and he was full of his characteristic 
vauntings and vaporings over the achievement, 
which he rehearsed down to the minutest detail. 
Moreover, he would have his joke. 

"Ever hear tell bout the feller that couldn t 
git a scythe to hang to suit him nohow?" he 
chuckled. 

She had heard often and often, since Bill s jokes 
were of ancient vintage always, but she answered 
that she had not, because she knew he would be 
pleased to have her say so. 

" He was consid ble finicky, the feller was. Hired 
out to help in hayin , but wa n t a scythe on the 
place that hung to suit him. Fin ly, the boss he 
bu st out an* he says, says he: I don t b lieve no 
scythe kin be fixed so s Yll hang to suit you, says 

300 



A Knight in Denim 

he. Yes it kin, says the feller, says he. I kin 
take any scythe an make it hang to suit me. says 
he. Go ahead, says the boss, an* so the feller 
he took a scythe an hung it up in a tree y gorry, 
up in a tree. That there scythe hangs jest to suit 
me, says he." 

Bill laughed his silliest cackling laugh never, 
perhaps, had he seemed more the simpleton. 
Though she pretended to laugh with him, Essie 
still kept the wistful regard, and when he was gone 
back to his knightly service in the field, she cried 
softly. 

"Dear, dear Bill!" she sighed, and sighed again. 

Something near a week after that, women and 
children were given most distinguished occasion to 
swarm out and stare with shaded eyes. And once 
more the soldierly chap was at the bottom of it 
he whom none of them ever suspected of being a 
tinker. But he was not on foot any more; instead 
of that he drove by, not hurriedly, in a cloud of 
dust, but with lordly dignity, letting the splendor of 
his equipage he seen. It was a splendid equipage 
indeed, such as the Valley scarcely ever beheld 
the richest the liveries of Atro City afforded. As 
for the man himself, his attire was not less than 
regal, by the ordinary test, what with the silk hat 
on his head and the rare flower at his button-hole, 
not to mention other touches only less convincing. 

301 



A Knight in Denim 

A woman is a woman, and even the women of the 
Valley Lilies of the Valley, if you please knew 
a bridegroom when they beheld him, though his 
finery should be altogether unlike any they had 
ever met with. 

Wonders never cease. The regal equipage drove 
up to Throstlewood, tarried there but a few brief 
moments, and then came sweeping back, the horses 
at a quick trot. And now the neighbors saw a 
sight indeed nothing less than the Widow Hal- 
dean seated in stately grandeur beside the bride 
groom in his brave array. She looked very pretty 
prettier than they had ever thought her hitherto 
though she was pale and her eyes were red with 
weeping. 

Were ever gaping rustics treated to so prodigious 
a sensation ? Perhaps not. Certainly it was all 
very overwhelming, and the mistress of Throstle- 
wood passed out of the sight of these her neighbors 
amid a profound hush almost, you might say, 
a breathless hush. Quite likely they had an ink 
ling that when the stately equipage vanished in the 
distance the Valley should know Essie no more 
forever, and were sobered by it. 

Bill was away from home during all that day, 
for now he was working out the road tax and need 
be gone from early morn till evening, taking with 
him a noontide bait for himself and his horses. It 

302 



A Knight in Denim 

was famous bait which he found in the basket Essie 
put up for him chicken and tongue, and cake all 
frosted over, and, by way of finishing touch, to 
make of mere bait a riot of delight, half a dozen of 
those wonderful tarts whereof the composition was 
a mystery but which Bill loved beyond anything in 
the way of creature comfort except tobacco. And 
there was tobacco, too. What extraordinary im 
pulse had possessed Essie that she should have in 
cluded that big, black, pungent plug of the brand 
he esteemed highest ? Had she fancied he might 
chew so much in a day, or did she choose that way 
to surprise him ? Anyhow, he was glad of the 
rich treat, and he would let no perplexity impair his 
satisfaction. His bait had the effect of lifting him 
up greatly, not only in virtue of its material sub 
stance, but by the cheer of the spirit that proceeded 
from it. The overseer of highways, keeping a 
sharp eye on his forces to see that everybody gave 
the worth of his tax in work, had no occasion to 
complain of Bill, who worked like the proverbial 
Trojan, out of sheer uplift. 

He was late getting home, and hungry, for all 
that he had fared so sumptuously. And behold, 
another feast awaited him, profusely set forth with 
viands to his liking. But his mistress, to whom 
he was beholden for these favors, was not there to 
be a witness of his enjoyment. 

33 



A Knight in Denim 

He did not call after her or go searching high 
and low to find her. The house was dark, and that 
circumstance may have admonished him of the 
truth in his simple, instinctive fashion, Bill could 
see as far into a millstone, on occasion, as the next 
man, though the next man s faculty should be ac 
counted higher than his. He struck a light, and 
beheld the feast, and forthwith sat him down to it, 
making no ado over Essie s absence. On his plate 
lay two papers, and he picked them up and turned 
them over and looked at them hard. Papers, as 
such, were beyond him, to be sure. They meant 
nothing to him in the ordinary sense not a word 
or a letter of them could he read. But the fact of 
their being there on his plate, waiting for him along 
with the viands, that meant something, and so he 
held them in his hand for a little and looked at them 
hard; and when he put them down gently there 
was a different light in his eyes. 

What with the house all dark and the papers on 
his plate, was it not for Bill to know that Essie had 
gone from him ? 

He fell to and ate his supper heartily, with no 
abatement of appetite. Neither the great meal 
which he had eaten at noonday, nor the conscious 
ness of what had befallen him, was sufficient to still 
the clamor of the perfect animal which stood with 
him in the relation of the inner man. It was a 

34 



A Knight in Denim 

glorious good supper, and he swept the plates clean, 
and when he rose at length he was radiant with 
contentment. He lighted his pipe, and thereupon, 
having nothing else for his hands to be busy with, 
he took up the papers once more, turning them over 
and over and regarding them pensively. He gave 
no sign of being troubled. His pipe smoked out, 
he yawned noisily, and presently crept away to bed, 
where he slept at once in the peace of unconcern. 

Next morning, all serenity, he repaired to Atro 
City with his papers. "I d love to know what s 
into em," he remarked to the good old judge of 
probate, whom his instinct bade him trust. "Very 
well, my son," replied the judge, in his comfort 
able, fatherly fashion, and so, at last, the papers 
were opened to the light. 

One of them, the larger of the two, and the more 
important if you estimated importance by colored 
seals such as it plentifully displayed, was a warranty 
deed, running from Esther Haldean, widow, party 
of the first part, to William Harbaugh, party of the 
second part, and conveying to the aforesaid party of 
the second part, his heirs and assigns forever, to 
have and to hold, in fee simple, certain parcels of 
landed property, their appurtenances and heredita 
ments, to wit: Throstlewood. Throstlewood was 
Bill s that was the amount of the document with 
the colored seals all over it. 

305 



A Knight in Denim 

The other was a letter: 

DEAR, DEAR BILL: 

You will forgive me, won t you, for leaving you so ? 
I know you will, because you have never failed to do what 
was noblest and best and kindest. My heart is so full, 
dear Bill, I cannot begin to tell you what I feel. Good- 
by, and God bless you and reward you as you deserve. 
I shall never forget you, but think of you every day of my 
life, and pray for you as I pray for nobody else in all the 
world. 

Dear Bill, I am about to be married to the man I 
should have married in the first place. My troubles, 
please God, are over, and you, I know, will find some 
other unfortunate woman to befriend, and in befriending 
her be happy. 

Best of men, the kindest friend a woman ever had, all 
good attend you. Gratefully, lovingly, I sign myself, 

ESTHER HALDEAN. 

Bill listened closely, though it was plain he 
understood only in part. He made no demonstra 
tion of emotion, but sat awhile in perfect silence; 
and when at length he spoke, he was quite calm. 

"Don t see what Essie wanted to be in such an 
all-fired hurry for. I was goin* to marry her my 
self soon s the fall work was done, or anyhow come 
spring!" said he, and that was his sole comment. 

Yet he seemed in some sense lost as to his bear 
ings. Instead of hastening back to his fields, as 
his ordinary way would be, he loitered about the 
village all day, rather aimlessly. Much of the time 

306 



A Knight in Denim 

he spent on the market-place, chaffering with 
farmers. Once he got into a pretty hot dispute 
over the weight of a pig, money was bet, and he 
won, to his immense gratification though the sum 
was but ten cents, it was money, and all money 
looked alike to him. After that he strutted up 
and down before the shops, pricing things with 
an air of abandon, as if his purpose were to make 
extensive purchases, though in fact he bought 
nothing. 

But at night and it was a lovely, peaceful night 
with a soft summer moon making an entrancing 
picture of the Valley as you looked down upon it 
from Atro City the echoes woke in answer to a 
great voice, lifted unmusically in song. 

" And roam no more in proud despair!" 

it roared, and roared again. 

There was no mistaking it. Neighbors, though 
roused out of their first sleep and by that none too 
clear in their minds, identified it at once, and won 
dered what Bill was going to do with himself now. 
But, at all events, it would appear that he had 
found his bearings. 



307 



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